Echo's in the Void
by SnipstheFox
Summary: Some think that war is just a thing, that it happens and that's it. That it can never happen afterwords, the truth is that war. No matter where, be it your galaxy, or someone else's, will effect you in time. Though for some, it may effect them sooner then they think.
1. Displacement

War.. War never changes. This saying has stood the test of time, it has seen empires rise and fall, stars be birthed and winked out. It has seen horrid dictators and greater leaders. War, is like an echo. Its always there and even if you think you have finally controlled it, it will get out.. It always gets out. But that is a story for another time, another place. Here however is a story of war in its rawest form, of violence borne from petty hatreds and fear.

In the outer rim of the Floren Gemini Galaxy two massive forces face off for the fate of a people, and more-over for the fate of the galaxy itself. The noble New Hope Alliance and their sworn enemy, the Iodorian Federation of Worlds. Now, based on the names you would think both of these nations would be at peace, maybe more? Unfortunately, that is not the case. But to truly understand this conflict one must look to the past.

The New Hope Alliance, an ancient ideal brought to surface by a race of bi-pedal canine-like sentients dubbed the Canians and the near-human Norians during a period of unbelievable strife. The creation of the Alliance was simple, to rid the Canian homeworld of the unethical and abusive rulers of the world, the Canian Dominion. The Dominion was a small group of centuries old Canians who had supplemented themselves with advanced cybernetics, giving them what was practically immortality, and they used this same technology to keep their people in a pre-terran Cold War state through the use of legions of mechanical slaves and soldiers.

As time went on, the war began to turn as an elite force of Norians gave up their own humanity to take on the power of the Dominions leaders, the Hundred and One was born, under the leadership of the Hundred and One's commander, a kind hearted Norian known only as 'Romeo', the Alliance pushed the Dominion back, winning victory after victory until finally the Dominion fled the planet, taking with them much of their technology as they retreated to the depths of space.

With them gone, the Hundred and One vanished into myth and legend and the Alliance formed itself into a world-wide government. Within a hundred years they had expanded to their neighboring worlds and had even finished constructing a functional FTL Drive. With this they could tunnel directly into subspace to reach other systems and chart places they had never thought of before. A time of peace reigned as the spacial arm of the Alliance, the New Hope Alliance Stellar Defense Arm or NHASDA as it was acronym'ed, defended the colonies with diligence and honor. Eventually however they came into contact with another race, The Iodorian Federation of Worlds. At the time no-one knew how dangerous they were, but in the months following the meeting they would learn.

Shortly after first contact the NHA staunchly identified their borders to the Iodorians, marking out their systems with an accuracy that still is the pride of their AI to this day, in response the Iodorians claimed all the worlds on the borders and went so far as to attack and kidnap the entire staff of a border-embassy station which quickly escalated into a full scale skirmish between the Defense Arm's Twentieth Defense Fleet, and three Iodorian Heavy Cruisers. The battle was costly with ten of the twenty four frigates in the fleet destroyed and a battleship disabled at the cost of one Iodorian Carrier. However half of the stations crew was evacuated, including the daughter of the NHA's Current Prime Minister. This was the first step to war.

After the battle had ended eight fleets were diverted and energy shielding was reverse-engineered from the ruined Carrier, this gave the Alliance's ships an even footing against the vastly superior Iodorian Navy, creation of several large battlestations and a new embassy was planned and done by the end of the year, just in time for the on-coming slaughter.

The date was 3/13/2327. The Iodorian president had somehow managed to arrive un-noticed on the surface of the Alliance homeworld of Tempesta and was purchasing a warm beverage from a local coffee shop in the Norian capitol of Noria City when disaster struck, a human in civilian attire attacked and killed her in broad daylight before being taken down by Norian officers, after being rushed to the nearest medical center it was made clear that the president had died, a single entrance wound in the forehead from a ballistic weapon was the only mark on her body.

Within minutes the largest ship in the Iodorian Navy, a dreadnought of unsurpassed strength and mass at nearly thirty eight kilometers of pure death and despair exited FTL directly over the city, forces from the ship quickly began to overtake the city and execute any who rebelled against them. All across the city thousands of Police officers and public workers took up arms with the local militia to hold off the attackers while police aircraft battled pitched dogfights through the cities streets. Many lives were lost, and before the military could arrive in force, the Iodorians did the unthinkable. In the skies above the city a single large plex-glass shell fell towards the city as the Iodorian Dreadnought jumped into FTL, and seconds later it exploded. The detonation mixed the Red Matter core of the bomb with various other elements and in layman's terms, it detonated into a miniature singularity. This quickly grew to the size of a normal black hole and within the month, the Tempera system was no more.

In the months that followed the NHA splintered into smaller factions before finally reforming, from the ashes of this tragedy the NHA was remade into a shield against the destructive nature of the Iodorians, but it wasn't enough. The Iodorians sent the might of their fleets to destroy them, and after ten years of constant warfare, they are near their tasks completion.

* * *

 **New Tempera Starsystem.**

 **Stardate 3/13/2329**

 **Peacemaker Class Command Ship NHAS _Shield of the Void._**

Holding orbit over the garden world of New Tempesta was the remains of the New Hope Alliance, after the loss of the Hathem Line, what remained of the Navy had pulled back to New Cania, and from there they had fought the Iodorians in a bloody backpedaling war of withdrawal. For every frigate the NHA lost, they took two Iodorian frigates with them, with every battleship they took one. But it wasn't enough, the Iodorians and their legions of cloned soldiers simply kept coming, like a wave that would wipe away everything if given time.

The battle over Los Marna was the last fortress before New Tempesta, and now the Iodorians were coming, every ship that could fight had been pulled into the line. Pirates, mercenaries, even personnel craft were present among the NHA's larger and more heavily armed frigates, cruisers and battleships. But at the center of the fleet was the real hearts, the only thing that made the Iodorians think about an attack more then anything else in space. Sitting in formation with their escorts were the powerful Peacemaker's, command ships designed not only to act as the center of a fleet, but to repair it, feed it, and arm it on the fly with its many bays and mining centers. It could even construct smaller ships up to the frigate class on the fly if given the resources and carried enough crew to man any ship in the fleet eighty times over.

It was on one of these ship that one of the oldest known members of the NHA fleet, and more over the NHA Admiralty stood and watched from the bridge as the tens of thousands of vessels in formation around him checked in. "It doesn't surprise me that they're late." The man groaned, his freshly pressed white uniform looking somewhat out of place on his worn and somewhat wrinkled face, his flat-topped cap lying on the command terminal in front of him as he stared off into the crowed space ahead of him. He was a Norian, and an Admiral at that based on the emblem marking his cap. In the holo-tank next to him was a woman, a female of Canian decent who was reviewing the deployment pattern of the fleet. "Admiral, all ships have finished entering the Heavens Gate defense pattern, long range scanners report IFN are still twenty minutes away.

"Good, lets hope for the sake of our grandchildren that we win. Give me fleet status." The man would rumble. Next to him a number of small boxes filled with data would appear around the woman, her muzzle shifting slightly. "Current count is at Fifty-five thousand six hundred and thirty-one escorts, twenty-five thousand thirty-six hundred and ten capitol ships, and twelve thousand six hundred and one Super-capitols with the Shield included." She'd list off, sliding one of the boxes to the side. "All together we have seven point eight billion fightercraft from the fleet, stations, and civilian craft standing by. The Red Talons and Shadow Fox Squadron have joined our current fighter contingent on-board, bringing our number of on-board craft to twelve-hundred." She'd finish, a frown marking her muzzle at the lack of acknowledgment from the man.

"Status of our weapons and shields, I want a full report." He'd say, his right hand coming up to cusp his white bearded chin, his brown eyes looking over the fleet lay-out sharply as he issues silent orders with the tap of a finger. "Current armament count is at two-point seven thousand batteries of Harbinger two-thousand millimeter railguns armed with one out of action for maintenance, spinal MAC's are loaded with two seventy two mega-ton slugs and are charged to full power. Sparrow missile batteries are at seventy-two thousand missiles armed and ready plus immediate replacement after firing. CIWS reports similar to the Harbingers, all ten-thousand fifty millimeter auto-cannons are loaded and prepared for attack. Shields report a similar situation, they are at ninety-nine point-two percent due to a faulty coupling but all ten secondary fusion reactors are operating at peak efficiency, the three primary reactors are also online though it took me a moment to get a response from them." She'd add.

The man would give her a look at this, the AI crossing her arms. "What, you try checking on something instantly on something the size of a large city, it takes a minute to get a report on something forty-two thousand six hundred and eight meters away." She'd reply indignantly. "I never questioned why it took you a moment, but I am thankful for the reminder." The admiral would reply with a chuckle. His laugh would fade as a single red marker appears on his console. "PSIDAR, Identify that target." He'd say, the friendly tone slipping from his voice as he clicks back into his war-mask.

At her seat on the right side of the bridge, the PSIDAR operator began cycling through the frequencies of the target before shaking her head, her muzzle dropping in disbelief. "A-admiral.. Its, they.. Its a Red Matter torpedo, long range!" She'd finally call out earning the gaze of all four bridge crew, the AI, and the Admiral himself. "By Tanith's blood.." The admiral would mutter, his body slumping slightly as his gaze searches the terminal After a moment he'd raise his head. "PSIDAR, distance." He'd mutter, the Canian responding in her hurried tone. "Estimated impact in.. Eight minutes." With that the Admiral moved his right hand and returned his cap to his head before pushing off the command console and making his way forward, his steps echoing in the sudden silence as he stops just behind the navigators chair and lays a hand on the mans shoulder. "I need your chair son.." He'd mutter, nodding the young Norian would slide out of the chair and allow the Admiral to take his seat, his hands resting on the control sticks for the ship.

"Eillena, I need FleetComm." He'd mutter, and after a few seconds the distinct ping of a channel opening would signal his request. "This is Grand Admiral Cal Doe Dregia to all fleet vessels. We'll take this missile." He'd state as he pushes forward on the control sticks, the massive multi-megaton capitol-ship pushing itself forward as its Admiral aligns it with fate. Off to the side the Canian PSIDAR Operator can only stare in horrified shock at her screen. "Collision course, impact in.. Four minutes thirty seconds. Admiral, our escorts are matching pace." She'd say with a tone of surprise.

The admiral would only offer her a glance before speaking aloud. "Dammit Silvan, what are you doing you crazy Lynx." Moments later a soft voice would respond. "My duty, it has been an honor serving with you Admiral and we will fly with you till the end." The voice would reply, all eight of the sleek Raymans Class frigates taking positions on each side of the ship while above it a single modified Saracen Class heavy cruiser held itself protectively over the ship. "All escorts transfer power to the FTL Drives, Admiral we will open a joined rift on your mark." The man would say as PSIDAR calls out again. "One minute and twenty two!"

Opening the internal comms, the Admiral continued manipulating the sticks, one hand dropping down to input coordinates. "All crew to crash stations, brace for impact." He'd mutter. Above him a large identifier would appear to highlight the missile and estimated time till impact. "Almost there.. Stand-by to activate the Drive." He'd mutter calmly, his finger hovering over the activation key as the countdown dropped from thirty, to twenty, to ten. "Hold.." He'd mutter as the numbers dropped. '..ight, Seven, six, Fiv-' "Activate FTL." He'd yell, his finger smashing down on the key with a strength one wouldn't expect from a man of such advanced age.

Ahead of the flotilla a massive silvery-purple disk would open just as the RM Missile passes the halfway point, the weapon just starting the process of detonating before the event transports it somewhere else. However the fleet, unable to halt their momentum fly straight and true into the event horizon as it begins to shudder and then finally collapse.

In the blackness of FTL at last, Admiral Dregia slumps in the navigators chair, sweat coating his brow as he sits there, breathing. "Eillena.. What happened?" He'd finally ask after a few minutes of silence, his gaze rising to the stunned expressions of the bridge officers around him. "Scanning now Admiral, whatever that Red Matter Bomb did, it disrupted our FTL Event.. I'm still trying to get adequate data now, but its.. Wait, Admiral." She'd frown, looking confused for a moment. Confusion and an Artificial Intelligence are not something that go hand in hand.

"What is it?" Dregia would ask only to be interrupted as the nav-console begins flashing with warnings. "Officer, seats now!" He'd grunt, his hands working on the securement straps of the Nav-chair. All around him the officers would scramble to their seats while the navigator, after a moment of hesitation slides into the command chair, the full shoulder and waist straps of it securing him in place. Re-opening the internal comm the Admiral would wince as the floor suddenly shakes. "All crew, brace for sudden deceleration!" He'd call out as the shudders and shakes grow in strength, the ship itself moaning at the abuse before suddenly the darkness falls away to reveal the stars, but closer then that are.. "Shields!" Dregia would call as the first massive piece of stone bounces off the bow of his ship, the massive super-capitol class barely registering it while the smaller frigates and heavy cruiser nimbly dodge around it. Pulling back on the control stick, the massive vessel slowly pulled itself up and out off the relatively thin belt of space junk, the few asteroids that did impact doing thankfully little to the ships hull aside from scratch the paint.

Leveling out the Admiral would reach down and unclip the securement harness before standing up, his legs giving way for a moment before he catches himself. "Eillena, find out where we are and get Silvan on the horn." He'd growl after regaining his footing, moving back to the command chair he'd let the navigator squeeze by him before sitting back down in the padded chair, the gel-layer contorting to his body.

Ahead of him on the console itself Eillena would appear, her arms crossed over her digitized chest. "Your not going to like what I've got.." She'd say bluntly, a frown visible on her virtual muzzle. "Lay it on me, it cant be much worse then facing a black hole in a can?" He'd respond, a small grin lighting his aged face for a moment before a holographic star-system map appeared in front of him. Not much to his surprise was the fact he didn't recognize it. "What exactly am I looking at Ellie?" He'd ask after looking over the map a moment.

"A standard Class-B Starsystem with seven planitoids, six of which show signs of occupation while the last one, the one we're orbiting, is in a deadzone." She'd respond. "Two asteroid belts and a single main sequence star as well as a large ortz-cloud finish up the system's basic scan, but I'm detecting a large number of artificial objects in orbit around this planet here.." She'd say, highlighting the largest world in the system and its two moons in yellow. "I'd recommend dispatching teams to find out where we are.. As none of the star clusters I've observed match up to any known database's I have access to." She'd finish with a tone of disappointment.

Taking in her words Dregia would nod and press a key on the command console. "SpecComm, report." He'd say as a triad of voices argue on the other end. "Ehm, status normal sir. A few of the men were injured when the ship started shaking, but we're fine." A rather nervous sounding male voice responded. "Good, please inform Teams Gold, Silver, and Crimson to prepare for immediate stealth deployment." He'd say, his console bringing up the status' of the teams. "I'll have them on stand-by at once sir."

* * *

 **Unknown Starsystem**

 **Date Unknown**

 **Chameleon Class Stealth Dropship Charlie Twenty-two-five**

 **En-route to unidentified Super-Terran class world.**

Kirra was not happy, when your in the middle of your sleep cycle and your woken up after the commander of your ship did something suicidal and no-one bothers to mention it until just before you leave tends to do that. But on top of that she was supposed to take her fireteam down and figure out just where they'd ended up. 'Frak my life..' She groaned. Inside her modified Scout variant helmet she sighed, she was a Lynx, a genetically modified being with an IQ of nearly nine hundred and ten, and yet here she was in a suit of highly advanced stealth armor, fitted with the best lightweight plating and weaponry available in the NHA, a far-cry from the ancient armors they'd used in the past. But why was she here, why was she leading a team of three other Lynx just like her onto some giant alien planet? With a grin she could have answered it herself, its because she loves every minute of it. "You alright captain?" The smaller of the armored figures asked, earning a curt nod from the Lynx. "I'm fine Natalie.. Just tired." She replied, she'd grown used to IDing her team through the faint differences in size and armor that she knew who was who with little more then a glance.

 _"Captain Mirrabel, we're starting our approach to the relay now.."_ Raising her hand to the side of her helmet she activated her comm. "Good, ETA to drop." Se asked. _"ETA is likely two mikes.. Wait, i've got something on PSIDAR, boggy at our seven, going stealth."_ The pilot responded, and less then a second later the shuttle shuddered as it went into 'Stealth Mode', its outer hull mimicking the terrain below. Getting to her feet Kirra quickly pulled herself to the port-side door and peeked out the reinforced window just in time to spot two streamlined violet and purple craft fly past, both only large enough to hold one person max while a third, much larger craft followed behind, it almost looked like a tuning fork from the old history books, but based on what it was carrying, it wasn't for finding water.

Raising her hand to her helmet again she'd signal the pilot. "Find a clearing, get us down.." She'd mutter before turning back and removing her modified plasma bolt carbine, her gloved hands lingering on its sleek black shape before turning it to check the charge. 'Full.. Perfect.' she'd grin. "Gear up, we're going in." She' say over the comms, the rest of her team acknowledging with nods or verbal agreement. "We're going to spread out on landing and recon the area, report anything odd." She'd say as the pilot opens his channel again. _"Captain, we've lost contact with the Shield.. Hard to tell whats jamming us."_ He'd say before earning a sigh from the already irritated female Lynx. "You heard him, SpecComm will not be keeping us company on this Op." A few seats down and hefting a Higaren Non-linear sniper rifle her sniper, a Corporal James Tiberun laughed. "I'm feeling lonely already." He'd remark quietly as a red light appears above both port and starboard doors.

Taking that as their signal, the team as one moves to the doors and does a final weapons check before confirming their readiness. After a few seconds the shuttle would shudder as it touches down, the light turning green as the doors slide open, allowing the black armored team to quickly spread out into what appeared to be a rice paddy, a few small buildings and a fence being the only signs of civilization. Switching to interior comes Kirra would frown, something about the whole setting was off. "Where are the people?" The female voice, a medic by the name of Lizzan asked.

"No idea, spread out and check the ajoining fields, O'brian and Tiberun, over that fence and recon, Lizz your with me." She said as the dropship quickly closed its doors and lifted off, its cloak reforming seconds later. _"Going dark, we'll stay on-station Crimson."_ The pilot remarked. "Copy Charlie Two-two-five." With that the two larger armored figures broke into a sprint before jumping up and over the imposing two story wall, their augmented strength and modified leg-servo's making the seemingly large jump almost simple looking and within moment they were off the sensors in Kirra's helmet, their stealth systems going live. With a nod to Lizzan the two quickly enabled their cloaks and readied their weapons as they moved down to the edge of the cliff and after a moment of hesitation jumped, their jet-packs deploying and slowing their fall to a gentle glide as they neared the ground.

With a quiet thud their boots hit the grass of the bluff and they broke into a sprint,a faint signal being highlighted on Kirra's HUD. "Got something, its in Galactic Standard.. Looks like a distress beacon." She muttered, giving Liz a glance. "Lets go take a look." She responded as the two cloaked figures began moving down the bluff the column of smoke rapidly becoming visible as they approached the structure and stepped onto the roof of one of the level structures, leaning over it to get a look at the wreck. "Got a vehicle here.. I'm seeing no bodies, but I think theirs plasma scoring." She says with a hint of confusion. "Its not ours at least, to big of a radius burned." She says before dropping down next to the vehicle, her rifle held in one hand while she looks over the scene before finally stopping at a wood pallet. Leaning down she'd pull it up. "Found the beacon." She'd mutter as the sound of blades cutting air begins to grow in the air.

Lowering the pallet she'd look skyward to see two twin engined VTOL's in olive drab slow to a hover over her position, the figures in the central mounted troop bay obviously looking at her position with interest before breaking off and moving towards the bluff as they dropped altitude. Motioning Liz to follow her the two moved out of the immediate area surrounding the site and took cover nearby as the armored figures, all four of them shorter then her, moved in to examine the beacon. One of them, the one in brown armor with some sort of skull etched into his visor removed the device from its place beneath the pallet and handed it to the one in teal. She was to far away to hear what was said, but she noticed something off. 'One.. Two.. Three.. Fo- wait.' She thought and looked again, there was the one in navy blue, the one in brown, the one in teal.. But the fourth.

Glancing at her sensors she hardly had a moment to react as she turned around, catching the armored fist in her hand as the black armored soldier struck, the blade in his hand cut through the air where her neck had been moments ago and cut into the grunt beside her. Instead of raising her weapon she dropped it, sending a sharp right hook at the armored form which he blocked and returned in kind much to her surprise, not many were known to match Lynx in combat. Grinning behind her mask she barely noticed her cloak drop from the rapid movements and simply focused on the fight as she blocked his hook. Gripping his knife the black figure pulled it from the ground and held it in a ready stance ahead of him while Kirra stepped to the side, putting him between the ruined vehicle and her before retrieving her own blade, the nano-titanium shining in the mid-day light as she swapped back to exterior comms. "Your good.." She stated as the soldier stopped, his charcoal black visor fixed on her own white visor.

The sound of weapons being cocked was enough to drag her attention away from the armored man as the sight of the other three soldiers taking aim at her clicked in her mind. "Thinking fast she tried to find a way out of the situation, but most left her injured or worse, especially if the rest of these soldiers were as good as this one. Finally after a second of thought she decided on her plan. "I'm going to put my knife down.. Alright?" She asked over her speakers, the black armored figure barely tilting his head. "Lead?" He asked as the blue armored one responded. "Stand down.. for now." Slowly he lowered his rifle to a ready position, the black figure simply returning his blade to its sheathe and retrieving his rifle from his back.

With a quick glance at the gathered team Kirra slowly sheathed her blade and reached up for her helmet, the seal breaking with a faint hiss as she removed it and narrowed her eyes, it was always like taking off sunglasses with it. After blinking a few times to let her eyes adjust she turned to the blue armored soldier, her gaze looking over the armor before hardening. "Sorry about that.. Your friend surprised me." She replied quietly. Surprisingly all four of the soldiers simply stared at her in silence and for a few seconds she could have sworn they'd closed comms when the brown one coughed. "Uh Carter, you seeing this cat too?"

Flattening her ears against her pale tabby furred head, Kirra fumed.

* * *

 _ **So yeah, this was more of a Forum RP based thing that I couldn't stop thinking about, so I decided to go with it and see where it went. Noble Six fights a living AI and a galaxy far far away is overtaken by a race of cruel god-wanna-be's. Tell me what you think about this, cause it only gets bigger from here.**_


	2. Intervention

Kirra continued to fume even as she watched the team of four move along the cliff-side, they were on alert and looking for her as they made their way towards the relay station. She'd used the momentary distraction showing her face had provided to regain her carbine and blast herself away from the group with her jetpack, it'd been risky but well worth it. Raising her hand to the side of her helmet she flicked on her combat recorder while she checked her helmet seal, the automated camera zooming in on the unknown fire-team as they moved into a cluster of structures.

'So thats where the people went.' She thought as her visor zoomed in on the man in civilian attire as he emerged from the largest of the buildings. 'Not much to look at bu-' Her thoughts were interrupted as text began to scroll down one side of her visor, much to her surprise. _**Translating Hungarian 2: "-he beasts, we dont know what they are or even who they are.. They killed my sun knight. Please, we need help."**_ Her eyes flickering over the light blue text Kirra couldn't help but feel confused. 'How in the void did Terrans get out here?' She wondered before shutting down the ranged translation matrix, limiting it to just around five meters. The software was known to be buggy in translating certain words or phrases to Norian, so she wasn't surprised that some of it sounded.. Archaic, but the message still made sense.

Clicking her radio she quickly began making her way along the thin rooftops, her footsteps echoing as she moved. _"Crimson, keep your eyes out. Those bandits we saw earlier might be a threat."_ She clicked, hardly making it more then another ten meters before getting a response. _"We've noticed ma'am, i'm seeing numerous civilian casualties in the area.. Permission to search for survivors?"_ Came the cool reserved voice of Khan, a Norian rifleman and their resident Crimson Four.

Pausing she'd consider it for a moment before finally shaking her head. _"Granted Four, proceed with caution and try to evacuate any civilians in the area.. I'm moving on the relay proper."_ She responded, it was the duty of any member of the Alliance to defend the weak and she wasn't going to turn her back on that oath, besides, she could finish the mission herself if she needed.

Pausing for a moment she took in her surroundings, something about them was off. On a hunch she slowly turned her head, her helmet cycling through its various visual modes, Infrared, thermal, and contaminant to name a few. Resting a few meters to her right, nestled in a tree, was an odd looking alien. At first glance, it looked a lot like a Tevronian raptor, a bird-like two legged predator with ornate colored feathers and soft skin, known to use its looks to draw in unsuspecting prey before ambushing them.

This being, whatever it is, most definitely is not a Tevronian raptor. Dressed in some kind of brilliant gold fitted suit and bearing matching colored feathers across the back of its head, Its eyes locked on the communications array off in the distance. Its grey skin and beak-like mouth fading to soft looking feathers along the back portion of its head, while most of its body was clearly protected from minor small arms by its armor, maybe even medium arms.

The armor itself seems more suited to movement, rather then punching power. A cursory scan by Kirra's helmet revealed that it was thick enough to stop small caliber rounds easily and was incredibly light weight. The armor completely covered everything but the creatures head, and its left foot bore a long claw-like boot, thick enough that it might be able to cut into starship grade hull. But more concerning was its rifle.

Shifting her helmet to it, Kirra's displeased expression slowly faded as basic information was fed directly into her cerebral quartex. 'A crystalline projectile capable of limited tracking at range, and explosive detonation once a significant amount of the crystals mass is present.. But only after firing.' She thought, a momentary lapse in her awareness finally catching her.

The beings head turned in her direction, its amber colored eyes blinking in what seems like surprise before narrowing. Moving at a speed that easily matched her own, the aliens rifle shifted and fired once, the round striking her in the chestpeice. The force of it easily threw her on her back, stunned by the impact and subsequent detonation of the pink needle-like projectile.

A few low level heath status alerts drew her attention as they appeared, and then quickly were squashed as a dull thud echo'd in her ears. Standing above her was the alien, its head tilted slightly in an oddly curious stance, its weapon held loosely. Not loose enough to show that it was relaxed, but loose enough to know that it was in control of the situation. Placing its heavy clawed boot on her chestpeice, the gold armored avian stared down at Kirra's armored form.

It seemed as though it was unsure what she was, and before it could explore the thought any further a harsh, guttural tone erupting from its forearm drew its attention. The brief switch in its eyes was all she needed. In a flurry of movements the avian found its foot pulled out from under it and its back indenting the sheet metal roof, a pistol pointed at its head.

The thing grunted in audible pain, but remained still, watching Kirra's polarized faceplate as it waited for the inevitable. A few seconds passed in silence before eyes drifted down to the creatures forearm, her suits hacking interface taking a few seconds to adjust to the foreign system before going to work. Hardly thirty seconds later, she had what she needed.

Turning back to the creature, a small section of her mind quickly read out anatomy, language and basic dialects. _**"Your not a bad shot.. Now give me a good reason not to kill you."**_ She mutters, the helmets translator butchering her kind, quiet voice into a series of high pitched screech's and garbled chirps.

The creatures surprise lasted for a few seconds before a radiological alarm appeared in the top left of her HUD. Blinking in surprise, her gaze dropped down to where a small 'C' shaped pistol laid mere feet away from her belly, a massive ball of roiling green energy visible, the air around it vibrating as it attempted to escape the magnetic field holding it in place.

 _ **"A good enough reason, I believe?"**_ Came a mono-tonous response through the translator as the creature stared back at her visor. 'Cheeky bird.' She half muttered, her pistol-armed hand slowly pulling back from the T'vaoan's head. **_"Your good. I let you up, you don't shoot me again?"_** She asks aloud, the delayed response from the translator showing as the avian's beak dipped a few seconds later. Counting down in her head, she slowly released the T'vaoan's neck, only rising off of him when the radiation alarm ceased.

Getting to its own feet, the gold armored avian's matching eyes moved over Kirra's armor quickly before locking on her visor once again short series of odd snuffling noises being audible to her suits lower audio spectrum as it did something, like a sniffle. A series of short chirps quickly followed following. _**"Your not one of the apes**_. ** _"_** It stated, clipping the odd sidearm to its thigh-plate. Tilting her head, Kirra couldn't help but stifle a scathing reply, translation tech wasn't the best.. And she'd only put the packet together in a few seconds so some mistakes were almost a guarantee.

 _ **"Apes?"**_ She asked aloud, the translation slowly smoothing itself out as she kept him talking, her mind putting forward dozens of possible translations for the word the odd avian was using. _**"The smooth skinned ones.. Those the San'Shyuum label abominations to their gods will. The Humans."**_ It finished, straightening up. A spike of both confusion and revulsion ran through her as the Skirmishers words were translated.

Before she could question the Champion more a series of rifle bursts erupted on a nearby bluff, where the flash of plasma of both green and blue variety was mixed with flashes of tracers. Above a pair of surprisingly quiet VTOL helicopters rushed over the hill to engage a turquoise colored aircraft of a.. Questionable design with autocannons while crewmembers inside fired out of the troop bay with machine guns and sniper rifles, the large 'U' shaped aircraft firing back on the offending gunships with a single tribarreled plasma turret of some kind.

From where she stood, there was little doubt that the fighting wouldn't affect her, but next to her the fast thinking T'vaoan's beak parted in something akin to a wordless laugh as several bright colored objects on the opposite bluff suddenly went dark, zooming in with her visor, Kirra was honestly surprised with what she saw.

Avians bearing a resemblance to the alien next to her were forming lines with energy shields, shields that were rapidly dropping under the incoming ballistic fire. Unlike the bird next to her, these ones had a more beige orange skin, and dead.. Milky eyes, their armor was much less covering and in the place of feathers, they had a few small spines sticking out the back of their heads, like whiskers almost.

A moment of confusion crossed her face until she accessed the bulk data she'd retrieved from the Champions comm. From his personal logs, and she was surprisingly glad to identify his gender without having to look for more 'obvious' features. But again, according to the logs, there was a blood feud of sorts between his sub-species and much of the alien religious conglomerate he served.

For whatever reason, someone termed 'Truth' had ordered a halt to all breeding by his sub-species. Those who refused quickly would find their family and friends branded heretics and destroyed, or in the case of some, fed to their more common cousins rabid kin as punishment before the offenders were gutted and paraded through the streets by fervors zealots.

Those that followed the decree were forced into the roll of shock troopers, where they were killed by the thousands in meaningless attacks against fortified positions, normally human cities or fortresses. Based on an estimate in the logs.. They were rapidly approaching extinction as a species.

With that in mind, she could see why he was enjoying the slaughter of so many warriors of this 'Covenant'. Glancing at the Champion, she understood why he watched as his 'comrades' were brutally slaughtered by the Demons that so many of the Covenants ranks feared. Zooming in on them she could easily recognize the forms of the team she'd encountered earlier.

The sudden realization that these soldiers were considered to be monsters by the Covenant due to their abilities was not lost on Kirra as she watched the team slice through the resistance they met with relative ease. Watching it, calculating each movement, there was little doubt in her mind that the soldiers, these demons.. Were genetically modified in a way that her people had long since abandoned.

'Maybe they're just that desperate?' She wondered.

Turning her gaze back to the relay outpost, she barely considered suppressing the urge to get up to it and plug in. After all, a relay like that had to process lots of data on a daily basis, data that would make her mission much, MUCH easier. All she had to do was get to it.

 _ **"What's guarding the relay outpost up there?"**_ She asks, the foreign sounding chirps growing more smooth then the previous translations. Surprised, the T'vaoan's quick reply brought forth more questions. _**"A few dozen Unggoy and several squads of Sangheili Ultra's.. As well as a team of Zealots."**_ He stated, crossing his arms as he watched the distant battle.

A few short seconds and the necessary data was displayed before her eyes. All that stood between her and the relay station was a team of religious commando's and elite warriors. Not exactly the worst odds, but not the best either. Making her way forward she was stopped by the sound of a weapon being activated, the gold armored skirmisher stepping up next to her. **_"If you mean to fight them.. I will fight by your side till my blood runs dry."_**

Turning her hidden gaze towards the veteran warrior, Kirra couldn't help but notice the cold flames burning in its eyes, a look she'd seen all to much in the past. Nodding she moved to step to the edge when another translation reached her ears. **_"And you may wish to seal your armor.. My lesser kin may be blind at the best of times, but they are scavenger's by nature, and your scent will alert them quickly."_**

Turning her head back to the avian, she quickly sealed her armor as he stepped forward and dropped into the mists below. Prepping her jump pack, she hoped she wouldn't regret sparing the rebel bird. With a flare of her shields coming online, she jumped. The fog below hiding her from sight.

* * *

Jump.

Bury fist in stone.

Jump.

Land on outcropping.

Jump again.

A few meters above her, the Champion moved through the fog with experienced movements. The mountain fog had reduced her to using her helmets built in silhouette detection system or SDS in order to see him. Each time he moved to leap, a flash of green highlight his body shape in the shadowy clouds. It'd started out slow, she was jumping from one rock ledge to the next almost in synch with the fast moving avian when he suddenly picked up the pace.

Now she was being left in the almost literal dust as she waited the five seconds for her jump pack to recharge. Clenching her armored fist on the rock she pushed off as an almost neon white flare flashed from her pack, the small vent on it glowing white as it propelled her half a quarter ton mass up the rock face to another outcropping. Settling on it she waited again while her suites lighting system remained offline, she didn't need it to see the bare grey rock-face.

Pushing off again her lithe form, or at least as lithe as one could be in a state of the art special operations combat skin, Kirra once again blasted upwards to another outcropping, this time simply gripping the ledge as she waited. Seeing as it was just simple climbing, the Lynx's mind trailed back to the bulk data she'd secured. Sorting through it she quickly disregarded the repetitive religious jargon that overlaid most of the reports and files, low grade encryption. It was almost surprising how easy it was to hack through it.

'Its like they've never dealt with a cybernetic attack before.' She thought off-handedly, her body more or less moving on auto-pilot while she focused on the data. Picking through it a number of old reports rapidly gained, then lost her attention as she edged through them. Most of them were combat reports, and most of them ended the same way. Fleet arrives over heretic (Human) world, worlds forces deploy. Fleet deploys ground troops and engages ships in orbit. Covenant troops face overwhelming resistance on ground and retreat to space while human ships in space are destroyed by the superior fire-power and shielding of the Covenant ships.

Covenant glasses planet, then moves on.

That little tid-bit stuck in her mind. There weren't just a few reports like this, there were hundreds. The Covenant wasn't out to conquer the human race, they were out to eradicate them in the name of their gods. Putting her own feelings of pure mortification aside, if not downright suppressing them thanks to the armors built in medical suite, Kirra focused her mind on putting together events while wirelessly continuing to hack into her companions communicator, and thus the Covenant BattleNet at large, it was pretty basic but it was slowly expanding.

First contact was actually surprised her, hidden in the data was a file uploaded to the data-net from a Kig-Yar ship-mistress, a captain in comparison to NHA ranks, the file stated that their equipment was detecting massive amounts of artifacts from their gods on a planet and they were moving to investigate. when she checked for additional logs, the closest she could find was an entry from a Jiralhanae Chieftain by the name of Tartarus.

The report is brief and states that his ship was pushed off by meddlers living on the world. The planet was then glassed by Covenant forces. This seemingly served as a catalyst and subsequent front line for a campaign on the planet by Covenant forces due to something their plasma bombardment had uncovered. Before they could uncover anything the second battle of the world, known as 'Harvest' in scattered transmissions, led to it falling back into human hands. A few brief records indicated a temple of some kind, and a beacon that led to another world under inspection by an 'Arbiter'.

Following that strand Kirra found that the mystery only grew, a pair Covenant warships were dispatched and one was destroyed the moment it exited FTL by human warships, two of which were destroyed and the remaining two badly damaged while the remaining destroyer engaged in surface activity at a second temple site. After that things get dicey, the ship and its crew leave for another section of space with a single human ship pursuing and arrive on a world infested by some sort of bio-organic parasite. The only accurate report she can really get out of the clutter and corrupted files is that the planet was destroyed by the human warship when it activated its FTL drive. The report doesn't state what happened to the ship, only that the planet was destroyed along with coordinates.

Filing that information away, Kirra found herself more interested in the 'temples' that were mentioned, and after a few seconds of searching, she wasn't able to find much. Only that they were rarely discovered and are revered as holy sites by much of the Covenant and the punishment for desecrating them was severe.

She was about to dig deeper when a brief touch brought her back to the situation at hand. One jump above her was the top of the cliff, and the installation proper. With a faint grin she pushed off and soared up over the edge, her boots landing on the grassy outcropping with a deep metallic thump. Steadying herself she found her T''vaoan 'ally' resting in the shade of the outposts wall, seemingly waiting for her with his needle rifle at the ready.

Now they could charge in through the front, which from the sound of approaching rotor blades, was not the best plan. Or they could sneak in. Turning her gaze to the wall, her helmet identified various weak points in the structure, including a very large air conditioning duct about head height. Now for her, that was at about seven foot even in her armor, easily above the reach of a normal human, and even some of the Covenant's warriors.

But for her?

Marching over to the wall she spent barely ten seconds on the piece of lightweight steel, her armored grip tearing it free of its housing as if it were cardboard before dropping it to the ground. With a faint grin she gripped the edge, and pulled herself inside just as the sound of weapons fire started. Just behind her the thud and subsequent grunt told her that the Champion had also decided to join her.

Switching her visor over to low light mode, she continued to lead the way through the vents. Granted the only way she could go was straight on since every other vent was too small for either her or the avian to fit, they continued on for what felt like minutes as the metallic echo of armor on metal rebounded around them.

And then Kirra realized one thing about the universe. No matter who you are or what galaxy you come from, every military with the exception of the Iodorians will go with the lowest bidder.

She'd barely registered the crack before the bottom of the vent fell out, landing her dead center in a large, cold room based on her suits readout. It was nearly below zero in the room, but based on the mass of computer surrounding her she could understand the reasoning for it. Pulling herself to her feet she reached over her shoulder and retrieved her carbine, quickly surveying the room while the clatter of armored feet and an irritated hiss announced the arrival of her wingman.

Inwardly she was glad that she had her helmet polarized, otherwise she was certain her smile would light up the room. It was such a horrible pun. with nothing in sight or on sensors for ten meters or so, Kirra's attention turned back to the wall of consoles lining the wall. With a few short steps she found herself looking them over until finally she found what she wanted, a universal jack port set into one of the consoles. Rubbing the small mounds of ice off of it she placed her left hand against the jack, her armor wirelessly interfacing with it before a small nano-assembler in her gauntlet whirred to life, creating a perfect 'key' in the palm of her hand.

Instantly she found herself submerged in data, navigational logs, communication protocols, star charts and other civilian data that she quickly copied over into her suit, while other files were clearly encrypted. Starting with the lower encryptions the young lynx found herself baffled as her first attempt resulted in her chasing her own ghost through the system, but her second ended in success and quick access to a majority of the personnel deployments for the planets military, more over she was finally able to ID just where she and by extension, her fleet had ended up in space.

Reach.

A simple name with a simple purpose, one that, as she tore through several other data caches, held a very important place in the heart of the human military, the aptly named United Nations Space Command. It was their military capitol, the center of their nations military and last bastion before their homeworld, Earth. At the name Kirra found herself pausing to look over a few files while she dedicated most of her mind to decryption of the military files and copying anything she could get her cybernetic hands on.

Within the span of a minute she'd secured troop and ship deployments on several UNSC Army and Navy units in the sector and copied them. At a minute and fifteen she was copying down several files dedicated to a group under designation 'ONI', at two minutes she was finishing up with a few nasty Trojans that had been hidden in the file and copying it, and most of the other files under designation 'ONI' as well as a few based around the so called 'Spartan's. At three minutes she had access to almost all starship designs in use by the UNSC and a few from ONI.

Whoever ONI was, they clearly knew how to play cyber warfare.. But they didn't have over two hundred years of experience in hand, like she did. Pulling her arm back, a small grin passed over Kirra's muzzle as the fast formed key quickly dissolved back into nano-paste. Turning back to her avian companion she nodded as a contact appeared on her motion sensors, and another one.

Company, at least five of them.

Snapping her head to the closest of the two open doorway she brought her carbine to bare as the first contact approached, and it was a biggun.

Standing at over eight feet of iridescent maroon armor, the Zealot's thick full head cover helmet shone in the light from its armors glowing blue trimming, the forked horns resting over its forehead giving it a rather intimidating appearance while in its hand rested an unignited plasma blade hilt. At the sight of the pair it clearly was surprised, a loud challenging roar echoing off the freezing walls as it ignited its plasma blade before being flung backwards into the room as a wave of light plasma rounds impacted its shields, and quickly punched through them and the armor beneath it.

The massive fanatical alien barely had time to finish its challenge when it hit the floor outside the door, sliding a few feet from the force of the weapons rounds. The silence that came next only lasted a few seconds before a grenade landed in the doorway. Throwing herself in a sideways roll, Kirra slid through the second doorway, landing with her carbine raised in time to catch an Unggoy in the face, mere feet away. The squat aliens light orange harness hardly had a chance against the powerful bolts of accelerated plasma, bolts rated for taking out what may as well be walking light tanks to normal infantry weapons.

Before the little alien had even hit the ground she'd already switched targets, firing on a second grunt while the crackle of a needle weapon echoed slowly in the background, a needle quickly piercing the neck of a Kig-Yar at the end of the hall while a second bolt of plasma made quick work of the only remaining Covenant warrior standing in the hall, another grunt in red. Rising from her crouch, Kirra quickly moved up to the corner while checking her motion sensors.

Nothing.

Stacking up on the corner she quickly rounded it, her carbine at the ready and her eyes down the sights.

Nothing..

Something wasn't right, her sensors had picked up one additional contact but there was nothing in sight. She'd just begun wondering if her equipment was malfunctioning when the fur on the back of her neck twitched. On instinct she rolled forward, landing next to the downed Zealot just as a blade of plasma embedded itself in the steel wall she'd rounded, a large figure shimmering as it moved to pull the blade out. Raising her carbine she fired, the shots going true before impacting the creatures side and arm, separating the latter in a brutal display of ash and gore.

Dropping to the ground with a guttural roar of pain, the zealot barely managed to reach for its missing shoulder before it found a much smaller blade of energy separating its head from the rest of its body, courtesy of the T'vaoan Champion who promptly extinguished it, his left hand returning to his rifle. with a grunt, Kirra pulled herself to her feet and steadied herself against the blackened doorframe, wondering for a moment why she didn't remember hearing the explosion. She'd barely let out a sigh when two more contacts came into view on her sensors.

Turning her head to the avian rebel, she nodded to the exposed vent and raised her rifle towards the only other entrance to the room. Not waiting to be told twice, the skirmisher quickly moved back into the room after a brief pause to remove the Kig-Yar's energy shield and leapt up into the vent while Kirra backpedaled to it, only shouldering her weapon after he'd clearly made it inside.

Kneeling down she activated her jump pack, quickly pulling herself back into the cramped vent as two armored figures burst into the room, one of them quickly making its way into the room as the two crawled back the way they came. Eyeing the broken air vent, Spartan designation three-one-two, call sign Noble Six, leapt up and pulled himself in as the much larger of the pair walked in, hefting a heavy machine gun. Shaking his heavily armored head, the massive Hungarian made his way over to a nearby control panel and went to work, he knew of the new replacements quirks and was willing to let him act as a Lone Wolf for now. It at least gave him the quiet he needed to do the technical work.

Much further along the air vent, Kirra activated her Radio. "Charlie Two-Two-Five, requesting immediate evac on my location, how-copy?" A few seconds of worrying silence accompanying her request were quickly chased off as the familiar voice of the pilot answered. _"Affirm Crimson lead.. ETA on outpost is one mike. where do you want me to set down?"_ Grinning to herself, Kirra activated her nano-forge and placed a request for a basic high intensity flare in blue colorization. "I'll need you to hover at a cliff, we wont be sticking around here for long, watch for blue flare." She said as the object in question quickly constructed itself in her hand.

A few feet in front of her, the clawed boots of her companion dropped out of view as he dropped to the ground outside, followed quickly by her. with a quick twist of her armored hand, the blue flares cap snapped off and a bright blue flame started flashing from it, dark blue smoke lazily rising into the air above as she threw it to the ground by the cliff edge. _"I have eyes on you.. Stand-by for retrieval, and.. decloak!"_ The pilot stated, a few meters above the cliff face the craft decloaked, its sleek black airframe fading into view as each individual hexagon style panel dropped its camouflage. with a roar of its maneuvering thrusters the craft dropped down to level with the cliff allowing the Skirmisher to simply step aboard, granted with a moments hesitation.

Kirra calmly followed him aboard, pausing for a moment to look over her shoulder as she gripped one of the hanging hand-grips above her. Hanging half out of the vent was the same soldier, the same Spartan, that she'd fought earlier. She didn't even bother to hide her grin at the sight of him, lower half stuck on a ruined piece of the grate that'd been left over, leaving his weapon on the ground and out of his reach. Then the troop bay shut and the craft dropped off to the side, the other troop bay opening as the craft approached the lower bluff, just about where the firefight had occurred earlier.

Stepping aboard the three members of Fire team Crimson found themselves staring at the T'vaoan in clear confusion. Their gaze slowly turned from him, to her, and back again before settling on her. 'This.. Is gunna take some time to explain.' She thought to herself as the troop-bay sealed shut, and the shuttle lifted into the sky, its main engines pushing it for orbit at high speed with its cloak going active a few seconds later, unaware that somewhere below in the outpost they'd triggered quite a few bells.

* * *

 _ **Four days later.**_

 ** _Epsilon Eridanus_**

 **NHAS _Shield of the Void_**

Four days. In the first twelve hours, recon teams had been dispatched to not only the super-terran world of Reach, but to each of the other populated worlds. Tribute, Beta Gabriel, Circumstance, and Tantalus and one other world that surprisingly was un-named by the UNSC. By twenty-four the Shield's sensors had identified precisely three thousand eight hundred and nine starships in system, each ship was identified another hour later thanks to the data received by fire team Crimson.

Many of the crew were wary of the new arrival that the team had come back with, but when the experienced avian had gotten his hands on a translator and given them a small speech about his reasons for wishing to join, the crew had slowly started warming up to him. After all, he stated he'd be willing to work with the near-human norians, despite a few odd looks he'd send their way when he moved around the ship.

He was allowed to go anywhere he wanted within reason, and if he approached an area that was deemed to important to risk him causing harm or damage to, either purposefully or otherwise, the area's local AI would lock it down and the door would remain so until he left.

Its not like he could cut through ship grade nano-steel.

The skirmisher champion aside, by the end of the second day they were able to confirm that the Covenant presence on the planet Reach was likely greater then it appeared and construction on a low grade mobile shipyard were being prepared and troops organized. On day four, things heated up. A location ID'd as an ONI facility and potential hive of information was under attack and the local UNSC forces were unable to keep the Covenant at bay.

It had taken ten high ranking officers and the Vice Admiral a few heated arguments and twenty minutes worth of time before they'd approached Admiral Dregio with a plan, only to find that he himself had come to a decision.

Stepping onto the bridge, they were met with polarized windows and a half dozen tactical officers overviewing a three dimensional hologram of the base, designation 'Sword', and everything surrounding it for exactly ten thousand meters. The base itself was shaped like a triangular prism that had been cut down the middle, a series of causeways and bridges crisscrossing the interior of the structure while a large wall surrounded the entire compound, a single large courtyard with a sizable road connecting it to a nearby service road, and from their to one of the planets many highways.

It was a fortress under siege by a large portion of Covenant forces, a corvette class vessel clearly holding the air and making it more then difficult to approach the area.

Fortunately, the Admiral had no intention of putting any forces in range of the ship. According to the various UNSC channels that the ships intelligence officers were listening into, they already had a plan in place to handle the ship, and as the combined officers watched it unfold, they began to appreciate the UNSC's cunning nature.

That being said, they were surprised that another day and a half later, they were recalled to the bridge to find an even more shocking sight. On the holo-map was a massive barren plain where a very large encampment was visible highlighted in violet spread over the span of miles upon miles worth of Covenant equipment, supplies, and troops, hovering above them were three similarly colored corvette class ships and dwarfing all of them, was a massive twenty eight kilometer long Covenant warship highlighted in pink, its massive bulbous fore section and large size clearly placed it in the same weight class as the _Shield_ herself seeing as she was only about a kilometer smaller.

Farther out at the edge of the map were three golden markers, the squad banner for fire team Gold clearly displayed above them in holographic form, a massive golden fist clutching a hammer. While a few kilometers to their south were two unidentified contacts in green, both marked by a rotating 'UNSC' marker, a spread eagle clutching the acronym in its claws.

"Alright.."

as one the entire bridge's attention snapped to the admiral and the two figures flanking him. On his right was Captain Mirrabel in her fitted dark grey one piece fatigue's, the twin crimson axe emblems visible on either shoulder of her tight fitting uniform while on his left was the Champion. He was out of his armor and wearing something akin to a jumpsuit as well, his however only covered his upper body, lower body, and upper thigh's, the rest of his body was left open to see, much like his face, his arms were scaled and his legs bore a resemblance to that of an old terran raptor, a single large curved claw visible on his toe.

The admiral himself was dressed in his full navy attire, his pure white uniform, cap, and shoe's were all showing signs of wear, despite just how new they were. His left breast bore dozens of awards ranging from the mundane to the kind that only a handful could dream of getting, his worn, tired face was wrung in a look of professional neutrality. something he'd learned to do over the two hundred and ten years he'd served in the navy.

"Thanks to information put forward by our newly gained ally, Champion Mon'tras Vagan, we've learned that the Covenant force on the planet is little more then a forward scouting force. They are looking for artifacts that are incredibly important to their religion, according to Vagan, they've found what they want and are preparing a trap for the UNSC." He states calmly before nodding to the T'vaoan giving the floor to the avian rebel.

 _"_ **The main force under the command of the Prophet of Discovery** **knows they are outnumbered, and are going to deploy every avalible weapon at their disposal to cause as much damage to them as possible, when the humans arrives and overwhelm their forces, the Prophet will uncloak the Supercarrier** **here.."** He pauses to highlight the supercarriers position with a clawed digit, the translators audio cancelation equipment making the speech nearly perfect, even if it didn't match up with his beak all too well. **"..and destroy the human forces before deploying his remaining troops to keep them from reorganizing. Within three days of now, the Fleet of Particular Justice will arrive and purge the world of all life."**

As he stepped back and let his brief summary sink in, Kirra stepped forward and took his place. "For the obvious reasons, we cant let that happen." Raising her own hand she slides a digit across the hologram, zooming far out. "So this is the plan.." She started, amber eyes flickering brightly.

* * *

 _"This is a stupid plan.."_

Sighing loudly in her flight helm, Colonel Delila Wilkee once again restrained herself from verbally castrating the source of the complaint. Resting at the head of D Wing, Wilkee's entire flight of two seater SB-72G 'God Hammers' stuck out like an Slavian at a pleasure resort (Not a pretty picture). The five massive eighteen meter long anti-ship bombers were all resting in a Delta formation while nearly a hundred others like them maintained their own formations on either side and above or below her own craft. The large smooth back star-bombers each carried enough ordinance to knock out small Iodorian warships, cruisers even. But thinking it over in her head, the plan wasn't exactly foolproof.

In one run all one hundred and ten bombers were to dive through the atmosphere at high speed, avoiding the UNSC's orbital defenses and perform a lightning strike on the CSO Class supercarrier holding position exactly a thousand meters above the surface. Just looking at the amount of guns there were bristling around Reach's atmosphere was enough to make the pilots feel uncomfortable.

That fear was quickly lost when it was made clear that three corvette class ECM boats were going to come along for the ride, their powerful jamming equipment almost guaranteed that anything outside an Iodorian warship would be blind to them, unless of course they looked out a window. Backing up the bombers were three squadrons of the swayback winged SF-344 ''Star Falcon' fighters, the sight of their distinct 'V' shaped wings giving an additional layer of confidence in the plan.

Even then, there was always the chance for things to go wrong. They were up against an enemy they'd never faced before, an enemy who'd literally murdered billions without a second thought. Most of the pilots knew that, and that's what reinforced their faith in the mission. It was the duty of any member of the NHASDA to fight in the defense of the innocent, and punish those who mean them harm.

As the massive formation approached the first layer of orbital defenses, they cut all non-essential systems, the ECM boats pumping out as much interference as possible. That being said, they passed within a spitting distance of one of the human space stations, the Colonel herself spotting at least one man drop a mug of coffee as her squadron passed right in front of him. Powering up her craft's systems entirely she clicked the radio transmitter. "Looks like the jig is up, corvettes are to cut ECM and transfer all power to shields, same to the rest of you. Interceptors, engage Covenant craft only, if your engaged by UNSC forces, break off and lead them away. Bombers flight, no matter what, you stay on target."

One by one the various squadrons called out in confirmation and the ECM field dropped, much to the surprise of most of the UNSC's first line. By the time the second one knew what was happening the formation was just passing them and making hard for the upper atmosphere, coming in at an almost vertical angle, while the corvettes aligned their bellies with the atmosphere, the fires of re-entry just starting to burn around them.

Inside her bomber, Delila's hands quickly ran across switches and holographic control alike as she aligned her shields, diverting most of her power to the fore where the inferno of re-entry was picking away at her bombers energy reserves. Behind her seat her weapons controller brought the crafts targeting software online and confirmed the attack window.

Far below the diving force the armies of both the Covenant and the UNSC scrambled to engage one another while several small UNSC starships unleashed hell on the masses of banshee fighters and corvette's that contested the skies, only a few of them being informed of the incoming flight. The only thing they could spare to intercept them, a pair of flat delta wing styled Longsword fighters, were rapidly climbing to meet them, but found themselves so outmatched and out numbered that they had no choice other then to pull back, the pilots of both noting that the formation was diving on the Covenants position.

Back in the Colonel's bomber, the entire craft began to shake as the flames of re-entry faded and the speed of the entire formation began to drop, the ECM corvettes dropping down under them and accelerating toward the battlefield while half the escorting Star Falcons broke formation and followed at her word. Behind her the gunnery chief's console lit up as it began scanning on all spectrums, eventually locking onto the signature of the supercarriers primary engines. with a grin the blond haired norian uploaded it to the Colonels console and transferred weapons control to her, just the way she loved.

Grinning ferally behind her mask, the white furred canian officer quickly uploaded the target to the entire formation. Twenty seconds later they released their ordinance just as a UNSC frigate began its approach to a tower-like structure far below. Pulling off as one, the formation began to climb as their ship-killing payload dropped un-opposed on the cloaked carrier, and in a flash it detonated.

Caught with its shields down and in the midst of charging the ships plasma projector, the detonation tore the supercarriers engineering section apart, the power surge quickly causing hundreds of subsequent detonation along the ships central line before it finally detonated in the center, the ships 'neck' breaking off, sending two halves of the ship falling toward the ground, and subsequently on top of the Covenants encampment.

The sudden strike shocked both sides, and the Covenant's remaining fighters, which still numbered in the thousands at least, were quickly set upon by the skilled interception pilots of the SF-344's, their pulse-autocannons tearing through the unshielded banshee's and phantoms with relative ease, the three corvettes quickly dived down to level with a lone Covenant Corvette, the mass of missile fire and heavy autocannon fire tearing into it while the plasma fire sent back at the smaller ships was repelled by the corvettes shielding, the impact of the plasma draining them considerably, but no-where near enough to disable one before the ship was sent plummeting to the terrain below, violet and white fire erupting from dozens of hull breaches.

The lapse in battle was quickly filled as the UNSC's forces began pushing once again on the now greatly reduced covenant units. Above it all the bombers began their long climb to the heavens, only to find that the covenant were taking exception to them. Swarming up in pursuit were dozens of covenant banshee's, most of which were easily dispatched as the escorts dropped back to handle them, but one of the fighters dodged in and around the bombers as the SF-344's closed in, making it hard to hit it without risking one of the bombers.

With a sudden burst of speed it made its move, charging headlong across the formation before slamming into the upper portion of the colonels God hammer, the force of it sending her head sideways into the control panel next to her. Shaking off the sudden dizziness of the impact she attempted to assess the damage to her craft, finding her gaze to be blurry. Pulling back she dropped out of the formation and eased into a low dive, the hammers weren't designed to glide, and from what she was feeling, the engines were dropping off. first one, then two, then four..

Shaking her head she felt a sudden bout of nausea rush across her, a bout she quickly shook off as her bombers nose began to dip, no matter haw hard she pulled back on the control stick. Groaning faintly she settled her plane in as best she could, the ground below rapidly approaching. With a slow, almost groggy movement, she reached down and gripped the ejection handle on the side of her seat, and with a grunt, pulled it.

The last thing she remembered was the cockpit blasting away and her seat rocketing away from the aircraft, a massive gash of fire and smoke coming off the back of it from the gunnery station all the way to the rightmost of the three central engines. Then she was engulfed in blackness.

The first thing she felt when she regained consciousness was an almost debilitating headache. slowly opening her eyes she found the large bulbous visor of her flight helmet offline, a series of large spiderweb cracks criss-crossing their way over most of it. Groaning faintly she reached up and detached the mask from the helmet, exposing her platinum colored muzzle to the open air before slowly removing her helmet, narrowing her eyes as the light reached her eyes. Dropping it by her side she laid back again, raising a gloved hand up to her head where she could feel dried blood.

Turning over she let her hand fall away, her deep purple eyes scanning the landscape around her. There was snow, a few tree's and her flight seat just a few meters away from her so she wouldn't have to walk far to get her equipment. though as she took a few more seconds to survey the area, she noticed that she could see the gutted magenta fragments of a large covenant warship in the distance laid up against a snow capped mountain. She could remember that the target height had been way off, but just how far off had it actually been? Shaking her head she pulled herself to her feet, her first instinct being to grab at her head as dizziness washed over her, almost sending her back to her knee's.

Shaking her head clear again she got to her feet again, slowly and started walking in the direction of her chair. She wasn't sure just how long she'd been out but the longer she was up, the more she realized how much hunger was gnawing at her. with her stomach in mind, she doubled her pace. The chair growing closer and closer to her as she walked across the chilly steppe, a cold breeze forcing her ears back against the side of her head before she finally managed to lay a gloved hand on the half-frozen leather of the flight seat, her hands pulling the seat away from the frame to expose the emergency supplies stored within.

With an uncommon voracity she removed one of the survival rations and tore the aluminum covering away, her sharp, canine teeth tearing into the nutrient rich block of military super-food. It may be tasteless, but as she gobbled it down, she could have sworn it was the best thing she'd eaten in weeks. forcing herself from grabbing another, she removed a medkit and quickly removed the nano-injector from it before raising it up to her neck and slowly injecting the powerful micro machines, which immediately went to work on an injures she'd sustained, internal or external with an ungodly speed. Blinking slowly she sigh'd as the migraine she'd had since waking up faded away.

Placing the injector back in the box, she removed her weapons of choice.

The first was an SMG that had its roots back in the Dominion war, the Norians, having been colonists sent out by a forgotten empire, were quite adept in war and quickly recommissioned several old designs from their colony ships databanks, the G36 rifle had torn apart lightly armored mechs and dominion soldiers alike, and its reputation had continued on even past the war. The version she held was the NG47 PDW, a sub machine gun capable of spitting out a startling four hundred rounds of low grade plasma bolts per minute, the bolts weren't rated for going toe to toe with Iodorian body armor, but against unarmored or even lightly armored forces, it was utter hell.

Laying it aside she quickly drew a small ballistic sidearm, little more then a modified pulse handgun, it fired a .45 ACP round fast enough to punch through light armor, but little else. Holstering it she grabbed the white bag from the seat and set it down, quickly opening it and retrieving a pure white Ushanka she pulled it over her ears, the artificial fur and cold resistant fibers locking the heat between her fur and the clothing. Removing the rest of the winter uniform she briefly considered stripping out of her jumpsuit and slipping into it, after all, her fur would keep her warm enough during the change. and her suit was too bulky to go wandering around in.

A few short seconds later she sigh'd and stood up, her right gloved hand rising up and gripping the zipper of her suit before pulling it down in a single quick motion. Once it was off she was quick to regret not wearing anything under her suit, moving quickly she removed the thick grey and white camouflaged pants and slip them on, followed barely a few seconds later by a thick turtleneck sweater and a matching grey and white camo overcoat before finally slipping on the thick furred boots. Breath billowing out in front of her, she quickly stowed her suit, removed the emergency beacon, and pillaged the other remaining bags for supplies, the Temperate emergency kit had extra rations and a few extra flares that she took, the desert one had a few scarves and other light cloth items that she quickly removed and tied around her muzzle to block the cold air, as well as a pair of combat goggles.

The oceanic survival kit had a raft and a life jacket.. Not as useful as it could be, but a few dozen water purification tablets and a flare gun would come in handy. the barren world survival kit was missing, go figure. It wasn't like much would be in that one anyway, it was basically a rather shoddy tent you could put up and live out of till rescue arrived. Pausing for a second she reached back into the compartment before removing a small circular disk from her flight suit, the mini-holo projector flickering to life, thankfully undamaged.

From what she could see, she'd been unconscious for almost two and a half days.

. . .

'Well shit.. That's a new record.' She thought aloud, checking her location. From the holo-map, she was ten kilometers from the nearest city, which laid at the bottom of the mountain, if she hurried, it'd only take a few hours at most. twitching her hand she shut off the machine and pocketed it and picked up her SMG, holding the weapon one-handed at her right, she turned to look up at the ruined remains of the starship in the distance.

Smiling faintly she reached up and pulled the goggles down over her eyes, adjusting the makeshift face covering before she finally set off, trodding heavily through the snow toward the south, she finally felt a spike of joy for the first time in months, they may not have been Iodorians, but she still blew their ship out of the fucking sky.

And that was enough to put her in a decent mood for most of the climb down. The further she went the thicker the tree's became around her, and the warmer it slowly got. After about an hour she decided to open her coat and lose the bandana, after two she had the goggles back up on top of her hat and the jacket completely open, the turtleneck underneath feeling relatively good. So far everything seemed pretty good, her bombers had completed their mission and seemingly returned to base. The _Long Night of Solace_ Was a burning wreck on the side of a mountain, and the Covenant invasion was probably stopped.. Wait.

. . . . . .

"Agh shit.." she muttered aloud, pausing to check her weapons charge, eighty-seven percent.. Not bad. Raising her head she picked up the pace, her left hand finding its way to the plasma-bolt weapon's foregrip, tightening around the molded plastic. The ground had long since given way to grass and dirt, and with it her pace was increasing. Not long after her revelation she found herself moving at a fast jog towards the city, her ears perked for the sounds of combat.

As she drew within two miles of the city, she heard it. A dull thud followed by a rush of heated air crossing over a tree covered rise a few meters ahead of her, crouching down she flat out ran the last few meters up the slope and stopped as she reached the top. In the distance was the city and hovering over it were the distinct shapes of three Covenant Corvettes.. Swarms of banshee's occasionally making passes while the distant screams of civilians and the cackle of gunfire reached her ears.

Her teeth glistening in the mid-day light, she readied her weapon, a cold anger spreading from the back of her neck as she moved down the slope and towards the city.

She had an oath to uphold.

* * *

 _ **Authors Note: So.. I'm not sure where to start here. Six is male and he's entirely equipped with ODST style equipment with exception to a Tac-pad on his right arm. The idea of Skirmishers being forced into extinction to me, makes more sense then the ominous black hole we've got for their race on the Wiki, I just cant see them willingly all charge to extinction considering they, like the Kig-Yar, are pirates, mercenaries, and the such.**_

 _ **If you guys think the bomber strike is a bit much, i'm gunna point out that a single flight of two Longswords were more then capable of opening up a hole on a ship of this class with only a handful of bunker busters.. The weapons used by the God Hammer bombers are what earned them the title, they are powerful enough to quite literally put any ship in the UNSC's fleet (Baring Infinity) Out of action for a significant amount of time.**_

 _ **Same goes for the fighters and yes.. The Norians are Hungarian, and to the guy who asked if they were Australian.. Just, how?**_

 _ **Anyway, if you guys want to help influence how this goes.. Post, review.. Things like that.**_

 _ **-Snips**_


	3. Exodus

**_"Oough."_**

Holding her shoulder, Delila pushed herself off the ground, her legs wobbling slightly under her. Stepping over to a nearby wall, she turned her head skyward, or rather, cliff-ward. She'd been in such a hurry to get into the city, that she hadn't noticed how close the limits were, or the fact that the cliff happened to simply fade into a supporting wall.

Fortunately it hadn't been too high, maybe two stories at the most. Most canians could jump that without the use of an aid, but falling still hurt. Rolling her shoulder, she removed her hand from the smooth metallic paneling and picked up her PDW, the the fall didn't look like it had done any damage, and a curious check eased any doubts. But she did see something that raised new ones.

A smudge of black on her otherwise white glove.

Pulling her hand from the weapon, she wiped it off on her trousers, eyes rising to the wall beside her.

All along it were blackened lines and small craters. Plasma scoring from the acrid stench of it. A part of her shuddering slightly at the sight of it. Thankfully, the alleyway was clear of bodies. For better or worse, so hopefully whomever was being shot at managed to escape. Bringing her weapon to a ready position against the crook of her right shoulder, she moved towards the end of the alley, her weapon ready to snap up should she need it.

The end of the alleyway though turned out to be a repeat of her previous tumble. Thankfully she managed to notice it, but staring down at the ground another two stories below her, she couldn't help but wonder who would create such a confusing construct? It certainly wasn't as bad as some architects, but it was surprisingly complex and difficult to traverse.

Or rather, it would be for a Terran.

lifting her weapon, she stepped off of the edge, the air momentarily rushing by her while her digigrade legs bent inward to absorb he impact, and her left hand left the barrel of her submachinegun. She hit the ground with a dull thud and a slight throbbing in her ankle, but her hand quickly flashed from the concrete underfoot to the grip of her PDW, the barrel of the weapon doing a slow circuit of the area.

It was a massacre.

On either side of her, the walls were marred by plasma scoring. A pair of bodies lined the wall on her right while the entrance to a balcony of sorts stood on her left. Keeping her weapon at the ready she moved forward, passing a sorrowful expression as she stepped past the first body. The young woman looked like she'd been struck in the neck and had collapsed against the wall, her blonde hair burned near the point of impact.

A few additional plasma burns marked her chest, leaving the leather jacket she'd been wearing a smoldering wreck.

For an brief moment, Del almost wished she'd been killed by an Iodorian. Plasma burned and inflicted massive amounts of pain, whereas the Iodorians energy weapons output enough energy to simply incinerate any matter it touched, and any connected to it too a degree. But as quickly as the thought emerged, it died. At the very least the plasma would have cooked the nerves in her neck, she didn't have to suffer for very long.

The second body was even worse, his chest having been liberally sprayed with plasma, leaving him splayed out on the ground, spread-eagle. From the look of it, she was standing at the top of a ramp in a small plaza. The area to the right of her overlooked a harbor of sorts, and in the distance she could see the tell-tale lines of three large orbital cargo-lifts, just obscured by the smokey haze that laid over the city.

Surprisingly, she could still see movement on it. Cargo was still going up, though whoever it was going to was something she didn't know it was unlikely that these aliens, this 'Covenant' made use of Terran technology. So it was probably military, or civilian evacuation.

 ** _'This is Kilo Dispatch, all available teams advance to Traxus Tower. Evacuation will commence ASAP'_** Her rifle snapped in the direction of the voice, though it quickly lowered at the sight. A Terran male in khaki colored armor with a rifle held tightly in his grip was leaning against the wall on the other-side of the ramp, plasma scoring coated his chest and the acrid smell of burned electronics drifted from his weapon, the front of it had been reduced to slag from plasma-fire, but from the look of it, his radio had survived.

Raising her rifle to her shoulder, she stepped over to the fallen man, kneeling down next to him. He'd died with his eyes closed, and had a small smile forever marking his face, a small picture visible on the eyepiece attached to his helmet. It had since degraded, probably from plasma damage, but she had a feeling that it had been someone he cared for.

 ** _'Copy dispatch, whats the status of the tower pad?'_** Unlike the previous voice, which had sounded focused and almost forced. The voice that responded was almost gruff sounding, both were clearly Terran males though.

Respectfully, she unclipped the radio from his side and looked it over, only for a dull roar to pass over her, accompanied by the supersonic thrum of rotary engines. Raising her gaze, she watched as a pair of olive colored, twin engine'd VTOL's passed over her, heading over a nearby building and out of sight.

As her gaze dropped to the base of the building though, her breath caught in her throat. In the center of the plaza were bodies, dozens of them splayed out, huddled together. They were maybe a few hours old, and none of them were military save for the trooper at her feet. Lowering her head, she clipped the radio to her hip and readied her weapon.

 _ **'Tower Pad is green, lets move these civilians before it changes.'**_ Moving down the ramp, she shifted her sights from either side of the area as she moved through the plaza towards the building, there was only one door open that she could see. A malfunctioning blast-door of sorts that normally slid into the wall horizontally was constantly trying to close, but only ever made it a quarter of the way as she moved up to it, and then through it.

On the other side was a construction barricade with a blinking orange light, and an LCD display showing off some Terran emblem, a large bird of sorts with the lettering UNSC in cool blue. Moving past the display, a door opened up at her approach, moving through it she found herself at the bottom of a set of stairs, another civilian in white curled up near the handrail.

Unlike the others though, she was still alive. The creature standing over her though, was decidedly not human.

Raising the PDW, a trio of luminescent blue bolts crossed the space in a span of milliseconds, slamming into the feathered alien and sending it down against the railing of the staircase, a small 'C' shaped pistol landing next to its form. Raising her aim to cover the stairs, Del moved up to the woman, sending an additional pair of bursts at two additional aliens.. 'Skirmishers' if she recalled correctly. Without proper shielding, the rounds tore through their lightly armored forms before they could return fire with their plasma pistols.

With the PDW still hefted in the direction of the stairs, she looked down at the woman by her feet.

She was a mess, there was blood on her clothes, and scratches across her arms, but none of it looked life-threatening, her arms were crossed over her head, but her eyes were clearly visible, staring at her in shock.

"Get up and follow me if you want to live!"

Even through her shock, the woman shook at Delila's command and quickly pulled herself to her feet. After twenty years of service, and performing evacuations, the Colonel had learned a tough lesson. Civilians are accustomed to taking orders when the bullets start flying, no matter what.

"Stay low and keep behind me."

In response, the woman followed silently, her arms pressed close around her chest in fear as Del moved up the stairs. At the top she swerved quickly, sweeping the area around the stairs before settling her aim on the only door that was open. Moving towards it she slowed her approach and stopped at the edge of the door-frame. It was large, maybe large enough for seven people to walk out side-by-side.

 ** _'Romeo Company be advised, we have reports of Covenant suicide squads.'_** Snapping her gaze down to the radio, she found the words she herself was going to say mirrored by another Terran on the net. _**'Oh you've got to be kidding me.'**_ Shaking her head, she raised her weapon and stepped around the corner into the next room, flicking on the built-in flashlight under the muzzle.

 ** _'Thats a negative, keep your eyes open troopers.'_** No sooner had the words been spoken than a stubby looking figure in red armor come running into the opposite side of the room through a dark hallway, a glowing blue ball of some sort in its hands. Snapping to the figure, she fired, the bolts tearing through the little aliens chest. It hit the ground with an almost comedic whine, only to explode in a ball of blue plasma as the ball, a grenade of sorts, went off.

"You've got to be kidding me.."

She hadn't even realized she'd muttered it as another figure came running in, followed by another, then four more. The little aliens were insane, running into the line of fire with no care for their own safety, trying to drown her in bodies before blowing up. By the time the last one had fallen, the grenades of the first were just starting to hiss.

 **"Eat my bright blue baA** **A-** **"** The stubby aliens parting line was cut off as its comrades grenades went off as one. She lowered the PDW for a moment as it flew over her head, past the civi, and out the door, blackened from the explosion and either dead, or in great pain. Shaking her head she lifted the sights again and moved into the darkened hall, gingerly steeping through the line of charred corpses.

 ** _'Kilo Two Six, this is Kilo Two Zero, covenant corvette is raining hell on us, final protection fire one. Danger close, my command over!'_**

Moving down the hallway, she followed the trail of open doors down a staircase and past what looked like some sort of ammo depot, a few small pieces of electrical equipment resting in crates marked with the same Terran brand. _**'Copy Kilo Two Zero, firing FPF One at your command.'**_ Keeping her pace brisk Del kept moving through the small storage depot and into a small staircase, stopping halfway down to make sure the civie didn't get left behind.

The young woman was keeping up at the least, but the glazed look of terror in her eyes still remained as she held her arms to her chest. **_'Fire FPF One, over.'_** A call of confirmation from the previous speaker responded in static that quickly cleared up, replaced by the gruff sounding Terrans voice. _**'Hold on to your helmets!'**_ Suddenly the floor lurched, sending her to the floor, while Del hit the wall and barely caught herself from dropping down the stairs. The lights illuminating the hall flickered and died, only to return as the shaking dimmed.

Pulling herself off the wall, she moved back to the civie, gripping her shoulder. "You alright?" The woman shook herself, nodding numbly. **_'Kilo Two Zero, requesting FPF SitRep.' 'Negative Two-Six, Corvettes still coming!'_** Pulling the woman to her feet, Del looked down the hall before returning her hand to her PDW. **_'Copy Two Zero, firing FPF Two. Shot.'_** Unlike the first time, she dropped her hand and pressed the civie back down to the floor as the ground once again shook violently, the force of it nearly knocking her down next to the civie, while a few feet down the hall a girder came loose and hit the floor.

As the ground again ceased shuddering, Del stood up. A hand on the civi's shoulder, the woman followed the unspoken command and got to her feet, once again behind her. **_'Damn, how do you stop that thing?'_** Oddly enough, she almost heard a hint of astonishment in the gruff Terrans tone. Though it was probably imagined, keeping up their previous pace, she stepped into the next room and quickly cleared it with a sweep of her PDW, the empty storage room barren of just about anything useful, even an empty slot marked with a crimson cross, something that even she recognized as a medical dock, probably for a first aid kit.

Shaking off the sad fact, she kept moving forward, passing through a generator room rimmed with chain-link for the doors, only to stop as yet another staircase came into sight, a staircase with yet another squad of the small aliens. One of them glanced in her direction and yelped before quickly igniting a grenade and letting out a battlecry.. Or rather a loud scream of sorts as it took a step forward, only to fall as a burst of fire from Del's weapon put it down. Quickly coming up behind the suicidal squirt a pair of its allies tried a similar approach, one was gunned down around the same place as its friend, while the other was consumed by the detonation of his grenade.

Moving forward again, Del snapped her weapon to either side of the door as she moved towards the staircase, then up it as a third blast shook the ground under her. The force of it knocked her to the floor, and it lasted longer then the last, but like the others, it faded and she regained her footing.

Glancing over her shoulder, she could see the civie was still keeping pace and had actually managed to stay upright during the impact. Raising her weapon again, she moved towards the only door in the room and was shocked to see it open, and a pair of screams fill the air.

On the other side of the door, a pair of Terrans were huddled near the door, sobbing uncontrollably. Lowering the PDW, she could see the body of another Terran outside, plasma scoring and a slagged rifle telling her all she needed to know about his fate. "You two, are any of you hurt!" Her voice once again descended to the tone she'd used earlier. The woman kept crying while the man shook his head, clearly in shock. "Good, form up behind me and stay low. Your not dying here today!"

A nod from the man was all she needed as she raised her weapon and moved towards the door, only to stop in the door-frame as it suddenly was engulfed in shadow. A purple craft, shaped like an old tuning fork sat in the air ahead of her, a scant few meters from the platform, and trio of large, heavily muscled.. Brutes, for lack of a better word, growled at her, their roars echoing even over the engines of the dropship. Snapping her weapon up, a trio of bolts hit one of the large apes, burning its bare chest and causing it to clutch at the burns with both hands.

Consequently, without its hands holding the ship, it lost its balance and tumbled from the open bay, much to the enragement of its brethren. Ducking behind the doorframe, a line of spikes embedded in the floor where she'd been standing, and nearly into the white garbed woman, who quickly threw herself in with the other two.

With a growing humm, the craft pulled away from the platform and moved off toward the other side of large plaza. Stepping out of cover, Del's head snapped further down along the only path she could take, and much to her surprise the cackle of automatic weapons fire filled the air as a pair of Terrans gunned down one of the larger Brutes, one of them turned in her direction and raised her weapon, only to duck back as a line of spikes embedded in the crate near her. Moving out of the door, she raised her weapon and fired a pair of bursts in the direction the spikes had come from, a squad of the large creatures had the center of the plaza locked down, and the two that had shot at her from the dropship quickly lept into the fray from the violet colored craft, sending line after line of heavy spikes at the two Terrans.

"What the hell is that thing?"

"Brutes, move to cover."

"No not the covies, that thing!"

It took her a moment to realize the Terrans were looking at her as the spikes flew by.

"Who cares, its helping the civies. **Hey you, assist!** " The young man, based on his voice at least, called out. Her only response was to shift out of cover and send another burst downrange, striking one of the Brutes in its helmeted cranium. The helmet itself didn't do much to save it, as the beast slumped to the ground, its weapon skittering across the pockmarked plating of the plaza.

The other three brutes quickly turned their fire on her position, massive spikes cutting through the air just past her heavy railing. A quick glance at the ones embedded in the wall nearby was enough to tell her that she did not want to get hit by them, it'd probably punch straight through her if it did.

Her fire though did help as another brute fell under the Terrans ballistic fire, bullets tearing it apart despite its heavy musculature. The last two, the same ones that she'd taken shots from, suddenly roared and broke from cover, sprinting towards her position, their weapons raised to use as clubs, or in the case of one, thrown completely away. With the threat of return-fire gone, Del quickly rose from cover and unloaded into the closes of the two, the bolts sending it down easily enough, and switched to the second. First one burst, then a second and she felt worried. A third burst scythed the massive creature down though, striking it in the forehead.

As it went down, the crack of rifle-fire dropped off and a near-silence dropped on the courtyard, broken only by the sounds of distant battle. Rising from cover, Del lowered her weapon and glanced down at the charge, it wasn't low yet, but if she had to keep this up for two or three hours, she might need to find a replacement.

But first.

Turning her head to the Terrans, she found them watching her warily. But they weren't aiming at her anymore. That was a start. "Who's in charge here?" The Terrans just stared at her for a moment before finally a voice called out from above. "That'd be me. Sergeant McQuillen, Kilo Company. Who and what the hell are you?" Looking up, she was met with a younger looking man, probably in his mid to late twenties in similar armor to the other Terran troopers, right down to the assault rifle, next to him was a similarly garbed trooper.

Biting back a sarcastic retort, she simply steeled herself. "Colonel Wilkee, New Hope Alliance Twenty-third Bombardment Squadron." She paused for a moment and saw the two Terrans still on the ground floor. "My bird took a bad hit and went down, I heard you boys could use a hand." The Sergeant's covered eyes displayed nothing through the tinted ballistic glasses, but she could tell he was eyeing her for any dishonesty.

Before he could respond though, a line of purple crystals impacted the railing near him as a quartet of Skirmishers and a Brute emerged from a door at the far side of the courtyard. Ducking back into cover, the Terrans returned fire, sending golden tracers across the killing field at the alien invaders, intermixed with blue bolts from Del's PDW and purple from the skirmishers weapons.

With little to no cover, the attackers didn't stand a chance, even the Brute only lasted a few seconds under the constant barrage of rifle fire. When the last of them had fallen, the Sergeant reappeared. "Okay, your with us. But don't try anything funny!" He called out, making his way down a set of stairs, followed closely by his other trooper. With a nod to him, the Sergeant motioned to the other Terrans. "Lets move it, flip a beat Marines!" The other three called out in agreement, weapons at the ready as they moved up, quickly followed by Del and the civilians.

Glancing back, she was surprised to find the number of civies bolstered by those the Terrans.. Marines, rather, had managed to protect. However as the door opened and the squad rushed in, she found her hope dropping. The marines took cover at the entrance to the apparent Starport, unable to move up the stairs that led to the elevator. Between them stood dozens of aliens in various shapes and sizes, Brutes, Skirmishers, Jackals, those little grunts, almost all of them had heavy armor or weapons, which quickly had the team pinned down, and from the sound of it there was an alien Transport on the way.

Turning her weapon on the door to the plaza, Del pushed the civies in and into a corner where it was unlikely they'd take fire as the first violet colored craft slowed to a hover, dropping a line of shield-bearing jackals. Raising her PDW, she sent a quick burst into one, and found it quickly shorted out, only for the avian alien to pull back behind the others for cover, before rejoining the fray once is shield recharged.

Firing a few bursts she found herself unable to score anything more then near-misses, she just didn't have the punching power to take the shield down alongside its wielder before he found cover. With the brutes it was easy because of their lack of armor or shields, but with these jackals. A third burst left her weapon, followed by a burst of rifle fire from her side. Turning her head she could see the Sergeant, his rifle spitting lead as her shots drained the shield, and quickly put down the jackal behind it.

"Thanks." The words were out of her mouth before she realized it. "Just keep up the fire, i'll finish them off." With a nod, she sent another burst downrange, and unsurprisingly, the Jackals broke ranks, moving for cover to supplement their shields. "Are there any other teams coming to reinforce us?" Across from her, the Sergeant shook his head. "That corvette's wiping the floor with us, while its up our Evac is stuck up tight."

"So nobodies coming." My grip tightened slightly, there were only a few ways this would play out without support.

"Seems that way, unless you've got some friends coming that I don't know about." His words were punctuated by a burst of rifle fire, the rounds clipping a jackal that poked its head out a second longer then it should have.

Firing off another burst, I considered it. It was standard procedure for a pilot to be recovered after their beacon went online, unless it wasn't possible. Or if..

She stopped, eyes widening slightly. She hadn't thought to check the beacon. "Hang on." She pulled back behind cover, gripping at the beacon attached at the back of her belt. It came away smoothly, the oval-like object showing minor signs of blunt damage from the crash, but most importantly. The screen was dark.

She never activated the beacon.

"Sergeant, I need thirty seconds." She stated, her fingers dancing over the small keypad under the pale blue screen as it flickered to life. "Lady, what the hell are you doing?" He replied, dropping back as a burst of plasma-fire cut through the air he'd occupied seconds before. "Because these guys aren't waiting around!" An empty magazine clattered to the floor as he swapped it out with a fresh one and continued firing.

"Sending a prayer to the heavens, and hoping the ancestors smile on my soul for what I've done." Even with the bolts of plasma flying past him, the NCO managed to spare a quarter-second to give her a dubious look, only to snap back into the fight as a needle impacted the concrete next to his head. Rolling the beacon off to the side, Del shifted back to her position and sent a burst downrange.

* * *

 _ **Epsilon Eridanus B**_

 _ **NHAS Call of Justice**_

Resting in the shadow of the massive gas giant, the Alliance fleet floated in silence. Dozens of small manned pods transferred resources between the slow moving asteroid ring, and the large skeletal shape of a Type C shipyard, while small by comparison to what could be produced, the shipyard itself was not small, being capable of maintaining, and creating ships as large as destroyers on-site through the generation of nano-produced templates enabled the creation of fleets wherever one may reside, so long as a crew is available to man them.

Given the size and crew capacity of the ship that spawned said shipyard, the question is not one of 'can we crew it' but rather 'how many can we crew'. That question was slowly being answered, as thus far, four Atris Class destroyers, hard hitting frontal assault ships equipped with heavy armor, cruiser-grade shielding, and four heavy railguns, alongside dozens of smaller secondary batteries on its port and starboard sides, and two additional Saracen Class heavy cruisers. The cruisers had been placed under the command of the Grand Admirals second while the destroyers went to guard duty, alongside a singular medical frigate.

Staring out at the assembled craft and facilities, an aging pair of amber eyes gleamed. The covenant had yet to move in the area around Eridnaus B, something which he was forever thankful with each passing hour. In their state, they could hold off an assault, but until they were able to bring some of the larger defensive turrets online, he didn't want to risk an all-out attack. Yet.

..and so he'd waited, he had ships at his command, and a green-light to perform operations so long as they did not reveal the fleets current temporary base. The issue though was determining what operations could be done, he had several plans available and spy-satellites in orbit of most of the inhabited planets. It all came dow-

"Admiral?"

He blinked. "Sorry Lizbeth.. I was thinking, what did you say?" Turning from the large window, he fixed his eyes on the only other occupant of the Observation Deck. Much like himself Lizbeth was wearing a full white naval officers uniform, though hers was without rank or insignia. It was also purely holographic, just like her white hair and pale skin. Elizebeth was a norian AI, whereas Silvan was a flesh and blood canian. In the faint light cast by the Holographic projector, his pure white fur glowed a dull blue, just a shade different from his uniform.

"We've picked up a distress call on an Alliance frequency."

That got the aging dogs attention, he knew that a single bomber had gone down during the raid on the _Long Night_ but after three days without contact, it was assumed lost with all hands. "Can we confirm the call is one of ours?" He knew the odds were slim that anyone outside the NHA would be able to mimic one of their beacons, but the Iodorians had done so once before, to great effect.

"I've already confirmed it, its ours.. But the message is, troubling." For a few seconds she remained silent, something that Silvan knew from experience was more akin to minutes or hours depending on the AI. "What does it say." A few more seconds of silence followed before she finally replied.

"Charlie Mike Epsilon, Rico Rico Thirty-four."

For a few seconds, the canine admiral simply stared at her before finally turning to stare back out at the fleet, his eyes closed and his head almost imperceptibly dipped. "I see.." Seconds ticked by again as the admiral weighed his options. On one hand, he had the lives of his men and women, people he swore to protect, but on the other. "Charlie Mike Epsilon." He murmured, the acronym itself was something one prayed to never hear. Civilian Mass Execution, it hadn't been used since the late years of the Dominion War, or the Ardonis Campaign nearly a century prior.

Raising his head, his eyes narrowed. Rico Rico was the scale of reinforcements requested, whoever was down there wanted a hot-drop of at least a full company. "Elizebeth, set Condition One throughout the ship, send similar orders to the _Heart of Iron_ and _Call of Duty_." Turning on his heels, he walked past the raised podium that 'Lizbeths projector was placed in and stepped into the elevator, the doors quickly opening and closing as he approached. "Bridge."

The simple word sent the elevator rising at a rapid pace, while a red light at the top of the door quickly flicked on, followed by the shrill of an alarm while Elizibeths voice droned over the intercomm, calling the ship to Action Stations. After a minute, the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened, allowing him to step out into the organized chaos that controlled the bridge. Almost immediately, the alarms shut off, and the various crewmen at their stations turned to look at him, awaiting orders.

Clearing his throat, he made his way to the command chair. "Lizbeth, intercom, SG One." A quiet acknowledgment and the sound of creaking leather as he sat in the chair was all that dominated the bridge for a few brief seconds. leaning forward he picked up a small connected microphone, a remnant from the ships Pre-Fall design, and held down the input button. "All hands are to prepare for ground assault, a distress call has been picked up and we are going in, Charlie Mike Epsilon." The mood on the bridge quickly dived as the acronym was mentioned, and several worried looks loomed across the deck. "We jump in Tee minus five, get ready for in-atmospheric drop."

The only sound audible across the bridge was the crackle of the talk-box being toggled off and set back into its receiver on the side of the command seat, it only lasted a second as the quiet 'click' of the receiver seemed to shake the crew free from their shock. Metal-framed chairs squeaked as they suddenly snapped back to their normal positions, the bridge officers going through their checklists. A few of the crew in their usual dark beige-nearly grey jumpsuits moved between station's, some taking over in the stead of the more junior of the group. Those that were replaced made their way from the bridge.

Through it all, Admiral Silva remained composed, seemingly undisturbed by what he'd said. At least to the uninformed. Some of the older officers could see it in the short, half-second glances they'd send back at him. The way his gloved hands curled into the leather beset his true emotions. He was angry, enraged even by what he had been told.

"Elizebeth."

At his request, womans avatar appeared before him in short order, her hands clasped firmly behind her back, feet together, and uniform in an entirely different style. Where earlier she'd been garbed in a digitized version of his own officers dress, she now stood before him in a similar grey jumpsuit to that of the crew, with only a few distinct differences between them, mostly additional padding on the elbows, knee's, and thighs. But the greatest change was the armored vest covering her chest, were she standing before him in the flesh, it's baby-blue construction would have hummed faintly from the integrated power-pack attached to its back.

A pair of straps connected it to a belt around her waist, which was further secured by a pair of thicker straps that ran along the inside of her thigh's, keeping the packs attached to the outside of either leg from moving around during movement, while a pair of thick, knee-high plexsteel greaves covered her legs, while under her arm sat an armored helmet of similar coloration with an emerald green visor held in place by her armored gauntlets.

The sight of her brought a faint flicker of satisfaction to his soul, it was something she had developed through 'The Fall', she had her usual avatar in her unadorned officers uniform, and her 'combat' form, and from the hard look etched into her visage, she was prepared.

"Upload plan Thirty-two B, Sub-operation eight. Connect to the satellites we have in orbit, and tell me our odds."

All he received was a mute nod from her, had he been a new-blooded officer, he might have considered her to be ignoring him, but after almost two seconds, she blinked, a small grin growing. "My estimates put success at eighty-seven point two, though I had to make some alterations to the plan to account for extraneous circumstances." At that, he nodded. He knew full well what the circumstances were, or rather, 'what' it was.

The UNSC.

The Covenant.

The Civilians they planned to save.

Any of them could through a monkey-wrench into their plan at any point, but with the stakes as high as they were. Risks had to be taken, and he'd be damned if he sat by and watched a planets entire population be wiped out before him. He had seen it happen too many times, hundreds? Thousands even? Worlds both Tempestan and Independent wiped out, their populations purged from orbit, or the planet destroyed outright if enough resistance remained to fight against the Iodorians.

He had seen his homeworld engulfed by an artificial singularity, even as the worlds mighty orbital cannons which themselves were the size of his cruiser alone pounded away at the lone ship that sealed its fate. He had seen fleeing civilian ships pulled into its gravity well, torn apart, or even pulled into the singularity intact.

He had seen it enough.. He-

"Admiral, thirty seconds to jump. Confirmation?"

He opened his eyes, forcing the image of his dead home from his mind. Staring back from the central console at the head of the bridge, a pair of bright optics stared back at him, tinted blue. The ships pilot, a younger Norian who's eyes had been damaged permanently in battle, waited respectfully. He nodded, and the Norian turned back, his hand flickering over the control console before him, one hand resting on the ships main control column.

As the countdown slowly ticked into the single digits, Silva murmured a prayer to his ancestors. Hoping they would be with him on this day. As the message left his lips, directed to whichever of his former family were nearest, a brilliant blue flash crackled into existence off the bow of the ship, and with a burst of power to the engines, the cruiser slipped into the inky blackness beyond, followed almost in sync by the two sister warships, the rifts in space-time sealing as quickly as they'd opened.

On the bridge things seemed to pause for the briefest of moments as darkness engulfed the space beyond the bridge windows before reality, or rather the lack of it, tore. The darkness shredded visibly as the massive craft returned to real-space, and suddenly dropped a few meters before it managed to arrest its fall, anti-grav systems steadying it. On its left the _Call of Duty_ adjusted its height, having come out nearly a thousand meters too low. On the right the _Heart of Iron_ floated serenely.

"Report."

He was on his feet before the ship had even settled, a holographic display flickering to life in front of the now vacant chair with all of the information requested. He left it behind him as he made his way toward the pilots station, his arms behind his back as he surveyed the sight before him. "The jump was successful, we are in position five miles off-shore at the mouth of the river." Elizebeth looked at the hologram behind her for a moment, even though she had no need too, she still found the habit a hard one to break, even after nearly a century.

"..I've also managed to get a lock on the ID transponder of our missing pilot, it seems the Colonel survived." He smirked, letting out a huff of laughter. Having operated alongside the woman, he shouldn't have been surprised to know that she was still breathing. Hell, he hadn't spoken to her since their last little 'get-together' over Todaki Prime. "No need." He said, raising his hand for a moment. "If she found out it was me rescuing her, she'd do her damnedest to get in the hardest situation possible." He paused, reminiscing for a moment. "Tell Major Bail to deploy, the spaceport is our priority, as is clearing the skies.." and to that end, he turned and moved back to the command chair, the hologram flickering out as he approached and took his chair, his hand unlatching the talk-box once more.

"SG One, commence operation." Once again, silence reigned over the bridge as he returned the comm to its place. But this time it was different, the worry and apprehension was gone, now a much more dangerous emotion filled the air. Anticipation, many of the non-essential crewmen waited, their eyes and ears fixed to their Admiral, while those more essentially kept their ears to him, and their hands moving.

With a simple motion of his hand, the admiral smiled.

* * *

"What the hell was that!?"

Del shook her head as she pulled herself to her feet. She'd barely managed to avoid a trio of needler rounds when an explosion rocked the doorway, nearly collapsing the wall, a green cloud of trace residue fading as she picked up her PDW, silently cursing the covenant. Looking across the doorway, she could see the sergeant yelling over his helmet-comm, but he seemed faraway, quiet. She shook her head again and re-took her position.

At the far end of the plaza, a pair of heavily armored, hulking forms moved along the open walkway she'd first arrived from. Blue armor and visible spikes aside, she couldn't pick out any real weak-points aside from its abdomen, which seemed less well armored. Behind them came another wave of grunts, twenty strong while a trio of the blue armored 'Elite's pushed them onwards, firing their plasma rifles in her direction to guide the swarm of grunts. There was no denying it, the covenant had them surrounded, outnumbered, and outgunned and in the case of the marines, low on ammo.

They couldn't fall back with the mass of covies behind them in the plaza, and they couldn't push to the lift because of the overlapping phalanx of Jackals and the heavy fire of the Brutes. She shook her head as her hearing returned, a high-pitched ringing echoing in her ears as she took careful aim. Her bolt sang true through the air where it collided with the armored chest of the massive tank-like creature, to no avail. Aside from a blackened spot on the armor, it had no effect.

Not good.

"We've got heavies sergeant, any idea's?"

She could barely hear herself over the ringing, but it was an improvement. Turning her head she could see the sergeant holding his rifle towards the ceiling, its magazine slot empty while he seemingly cursed at.. something. She turned to look at the other door, and felt her stomach lurch. One of the marines, the one that had been with the sergeant when she first encountered them, was nothing more then a waist and legs, his upper-body having been reduced to a bloodied mess.

From what, she didn't know, but the effect was damning.

The other two marines stuck to the cover of their respective walls, only popping out to fire blindly into the lobby beyond. Turning her attention back outside, she felt her hope sink even lower as the line of alien soldiers shifted forward, reforming into a line thanks to her lack of fire. The grunts waddled forward while the Elites and their two massive supporters stepped closer to her position. Above them another of the covenants tuning-fork shaped dropships slowed to a halt, just barely over the edge of the plaza. "This is it.." She muttered, mostly to herself as she rose from her position and stepped into the open.

Behind her she could hear the sergeant call out, but couldn't make out what he said. Dropping her PDW at her feet she walked towards them. The grunts were the first to stop, many of them taking aim at her, only to stop as a guttural voice called out from behind them. The grunts quickly lowered their weapons while the turret on the dropship rotated, following my movements.

From the center of the covenant line, a figure stepped past the two massive walking tanks in glistening amber armor. The blue armored elites stepped aside for him, bowing their heads slightly while the grunts simple got as far from him as possible.

Stepping into the open, the Elite kept his pace. Moving slowly, in a deliberate, but.. Noble, manner. He was easily taller then me, and it only became more obvious as the distance between us decreased. Finally, half-way between the door and the covenant line, we stopped. I craned my head up to meet the elites reptilian gaze, while he in turn, stared down at me with something akin to pity.

 ** _"So your the cause of this, disruption."_**

I narrowed my eyes as the elite spoke. The words were translated, or spoken truly.. I couldn't tell. Slowly, I nodded my head and was surprised to see excitement, or something similar in its eyes.

 ** _"You've proven yourself an able warrior. Why throw your lot in with the_** _Humans **?"**_

He stepped to the side, his hoofed feet producing muffled shakes with each step. His hand never stopped moving as he paced, punctuating his every word as he spoke, while his other hand rested atop something i'd missed. A leather holster, holding a small device, about the size of his hand. "Why do you fight them?"

The words seemed to give the Elite pause as he paced, staring me down. **_"I fight by order of my prophets, as is my oath."_** His hand tightened slightly on the device, squeezing it ever-so slightly. "Then you must understand my reason already." The elite narrowed his golden eyes. **_"You swore an oath to fight for them?"_** There was no anger in his voice, but.. There was something else. "Not to humanity alone, no. But my oath includes them."

The Elite ceased his pacing, his eyes slowly widening to what was probably normal for his kind. _**"An honorbound oath to protect, a foolish choice.. But an honorable one."**_ Finally, his hand rose with the device held firmly in his grip, and with a faintly audible 'click' a pair of curved plasma blades flashed into existence, their brilliant light nearly blinding to look at.

 ** _"By aiding the humans, you must join them in their fate. But know that I will speak of your honor, however small it may be."_** He took a step forward, bringing his blade back, prepared to arch towards me when he paused, his head turning back to the covenant line as an explosion filled the air. In the air above the plaza, the dropship suddenly lurched to the side, its right side ablaze in purple flame as it passed over the line of aliens and slammed into the far side of the plaza, its undamaged left embedding in the wall of the plaza's lone food court, a secondary explosion rocking its fuselage.

Before anyone could react, a sudden line of tracers tore through the line of grunts, cutting them down in droves while the massive aliens raises their shields to protect themselves. The blue armored elites shields held out long enough for them to find cover while the grunts panicked and ran. Following the line of tracers, I felt hope rush to fill the void it'd been drained from.

Descending at a steady rate towards the plaza's open terrace were three grey colored dropships with light blue highlights marking their surfaces. Formed around a square troop-bay in the crafts center, it had two stubby sets of wings, two sizable tail-fins, and two massive main thrusters mounted on its top, while several vector thrusters ran along the crafts underside A sloped cockpit and heavy weapons attachment point in the nose finished off its iconic figure.

A Star Ox.

I hardly had a moment to marvel when a force sent me tumbling, my chest screaming as the air was forced from them. The Elite took a second step forward only to be pushed back as a series of azure bolts passed over my head, striking him in the chest. His shield flickered to life on impact, and he quickly moved his blade to block the rest, the sword, as that's all I could think it was at this point absorbed the bolts plasma into its field. The kinetics still pushed him back though.

With his sword raised, he retreated, nearly being clipped by a burst of autocannon fire as the Oxen swooped in to occupy the same place the covenant dropship had occupied previously, their nose-mounted 40mm cannons spitting golden lines of death on the remaining grunts, taking extra care to focus fire on the massive alien pair in the center of the panicked mob. Even the heavy armor of the aliens couldn't handle the sheer weight of firepower being thrown against them, and they fell.

Taking a ragged breath, I lifted myself. Bracing my elbow to keep me up, grimacing at the pain in my ribs. I almost didn't notice the sergeant approaching until he was grabbing the back of my shirt, dragging me back towards the door. He had my PDW, firing it one-handed toward the disintegrating covenant line. Turning my gaze back to the line, I couldn't see the elite, nor any of the others.

We came to a stop at the side of the door and he propped me up against it, still taking shots at the dwindling covies, only to lower the weapon as the Oxen finally came in and hovered right at level with the terraces, the troop-bay doors on their sides opened, allowing canian soldiers in grey uniforms and baby-blue armor to rush forward, their modular rifles spitting plasma-bolts at speeds that simply amazed the human soldier.

What few covenant remained to oppose their landing lasted barely a second, but one managed to get a shot off, nicking one of the troopers. Only for the bolt to be halted by a shimmering field of blue. Each dropship released a squad of eight, and from the look of it, each squad was outfitted with a medic, showcased as three white armored canians came rushing towards us, crimson crosses visible on their pure-white armored chests and helmets.

The sergeant eyed them warily as they approached, but was surprised when two of them simply moved past him into the building, followed quickly by one of the three squads. Almost seconds later the civilians came running out, escorted by the medics, one of which was carrying some kind of vial about the size of mans hand full of what looked like blood. The medic looking me over simply shook his head and lifted me up, supporting my weight as he lifted me over his shoulder with ease.

Wincing, I couldn't help but smile at the sergeant who followed along as his marines finally exited at the back of the group of civies. "Seems your friends have a knack for timing." He said, following just behind the medic. I closed my eyes, chuckling quietly, pain be damned. "..They have a way of doing that." I replied, cracking my eyes slightly as the roar of engines passed overhead.

Opening my eyes fully, I caught the tail-end of a flight of Oxen passing overhead. Followed quickly by the massive violet bulk of a covenant corvette, neon purple fire pouring from its right side as it accelerated over our position and climbed, a full squadron of Star Falcons nipping at its heels with flashes of bright plasma as it climbed for orbit, only to be obscured by the cloud-layer above.

The pain erupted again as the medic made a short hop over onto the Oxen, still hovering over the terrace. The marines climbed aboard alongside the civies, who, despite some misgivings about the odd looking craft, were ultimately determined to be anywhere but back in the terminal building. I groaned as the medic carefully set me down in one of the seats next to the open troop-bay, and the craft began its accent. Down below two of the squads were clearly fighting against the covies occupying the area around the elevator, while the third squad held the Plaza, but once we passed over the top of the building I found my breath stolen from me yet again.

Resting in the center of the bay was the remains of two covenant ships, corvettes if she remembered correctly. The same ships that had been halting the evacuation of the city. The third was no-where in sight, but in their place floated three massive Saracen Class cruisers surrounded by swarms of Star-Falcons and Oxen, as well as some UNSC craft. Though the vast majority of the latter seemed determined to keep their distance.

Leaning slightly, I could see heavy fighting below as the dropship turned towards the cruisers and accelerated Passing over the spaceport as the first wave of civilian transports lifted off and made way for landing dropships from any one of the three cruisers, allowing streams of NHA Troopers to force themselves into the fray around the beleaguered starport.

Leaning back, I let my head droop as exhaustion finally overcame adrenaline. My last though were shock and surprise. I'd called for an evacuation team, I got a liberation fleet. But truthfully, I was glad I got the fleet..

* * *

 _ **Two thousand meters above New Alexandria,**_

 _ **NHAS Call of Justice.**_

The bridge was a scene of controlled chaos, the large open space lined with holographic touch-display's and manned by a full dozen ground coordinators, each of them a member of the ships marines, or Fleet Troopers as they were officially designated. Each of them coordinated the operations taking place along the coastal section of the city, commanding full platoons as they fought to secure key sections of the coastal metropolis's infrastructure.

On one screen, two squads were escorting a truckload of four dozen civilians along one of the large winding skyways while the other two squads of their platoon practically tore into an equal number of grunts and jackals, and a handful of brutes. The covenant warriors falling under the accurate and overwhelming fire, cooking off methane tanks and burning through muscled hide like it wasn't even there.

On a second screen a trio of Wildcat IFV's in both their anti-infantry, and anti-armor roles faced off alongside two squads of Fleet Troopers and a squad of UNSC marines against a large force of covenant armor. The eight-wheeled, smooth armored vehicles spewing bolts akin to a 40mm cannon down the large causeway from the armored turrets set into the center of their armored roofs, shield generators preventing the massive arching bolts of plasma the covenant tanks made use of from engulfing the vehicle, while the AT variant of the vehicle made use of a larger long-barreled version, sending bolts of plasma forth at speeds generally saved for space-based weapons.

The covenant tanks could hardly face off against it on equal footing, it simply out-ranged them, and each shot from its muzzle tore easily through them. Already four burning husks filled the causeway, almost completely impeding any vehicle traffic, while the neon violet-blue flames from the tanks filled the air above and obscured the fight to all but the most advanced scanning systems.

But it was on the largest screen in the room, resting in front of the command chair, that could be considered the most worrisome of the battles raging. On the display was the war in orbit between the UNSC and the Covenant fleets, both were battered. On the UNSC's part from their lack of endurance against the covenants plasma weapons, and lack of damage infliction due to the Covenants shielding, and on the Covenant side due to quick tactical thinking and artful use of tactical nuclear mines which destroyed a masterful number of the alien vessels.

But that still left them remaining twenty or so UNSC vessels outnumbered by nearly ten-fold against the covenant fleet, but even when the Covenant revealed their trump card in the form of a long-range bombardment vessel that easily cleaved through a half-dozen of the UNSC's own, they still managed to destroy it, once again with an art form's level of mastery with the use of nuclear weapons, slipping it through the ships shielding just as it was recharging before detonating, its shields trapping the blast inside and almost causing the ship to evaporate from the forces inflicted upon it.

It was a thing of beauty in the eyes of any tactical minded commander. Something that the Admiral himself prided himself on, one didn't reach his age nor his rank without learning to appreciate skillful tactics and useful improvised strategies. The UNSC's use of their own automated repair stations as armored shields against the covenants opening barrage were effective enough, but once they were gone and the dust was cleared, the second barrage cut them down like wheat.

So when one of their vastly reduced number broke formation and began a decent to the planet below, he took notice. He had Elizabeth pull whatever records she could find on the ship and its officer, who himself seemed to have developed the stratagem that wiped out more then a third of the covenant fleet. Given the data pulled by SpecComm during the opening hours of the fleets arrival and subsequent first engagement with the covenant.

He had more then enough information on the UNSC's assets in the region, more then half of which he was certain was very, very classified to them given the many viruses and kill-programs that SpecComm's AI decoders were still removing from the damnable ONI files. He'd decoded things during his tour in the naval academy almost a century ago and he had to give the Motherboard-Jockies his praise, when he looked at one of the files he couldn't tell which were kill-codes and which were just simple junk-code.

He was too old for that sort of work, maybe if he'd looked into it more ten or twenty years prior. But no, it wasn't for him. But that was a line of thought for another time, for the moment he had something more important to work on, the file itself having been cleared an hour ago. It started off simple enough, born on Earth.. Must be before Earths destruction.

Ehm, right. A young officer enrolled in the Terrans Officer Candidate School, demoted following a training exercise gone wrong in which he refused to testify against the trainer. Interesting, assigned to a UNSC Carrier under the designation _Magellan_ before being reassigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence Section Three under the request of a Doctor Catherine Halsey. No information between then and his reassignment back to normal duties as a full Lieutenant, after-which he appears to have had a child, one Miranda Halsey.

Developed a knack for unconventional strategy and tactics, earned several commendations for successfully defending a UNSC frigate during an attack by covenant boarders. Several tours aboard a stealth frigate by the name of the _Midsummer Night_ , and a battle with insurrectionist force, supported by Kig-Yar pirates in a large asteroid-colony. Later promoted to the rank of Commander for evacuating the colonies population in the face of overwhelming covenant assault, and his daughter changed her surname to match his. Seems she's more of a daddies girl, maybe I should check her file after this?

Regardless, he taught at the OCS Academy on Luna and was regarded by the name 'Schoolmaster'. Something tells me that it was meant as an insult, but if he taught those officers under him even a gram of what he knows, they might have a chance.

Eventually transferred to the UNSC _Iroquois_ and participated in yet another battle against the covenant, destroying three ships in a single maneuver. Surprising that they named it after him given the animosity this file has towards him. But with the damage he inflicted, it must have been the least they could do. Afterwards he returned here, to Reach for reassignment once again as well as a promotion to the rank of Captain. Stationed aboard the same cruiser he commanded now.

Had this man been born a Norian, he'd probably be among the Admiralty with himself, or even the Grand Admiral. Yes, this man would be perfect. If anyone could help convince the UNSC that they were there to assist it would be him. Unconventional, willing to compromise, and clever.

"Elizabeth, do you have the connection set?"

He leaned back, having unconsciously leaned forward as he read the file, and lowered his gaze to the small holographic form of the AI as she appeared in the space at the bottom of the holodisplay, using a 2D window to conserve processing power as she likely focused on operating any of the dozens of other systems across the ship, as well as maintained its position. "But yes, its ready. Shall I connect you?"

A short nod and the mans file flashed from the screen, replaced by a blank image, a small holographic ring rotating in place for a few moments as it connected before finally it flickered into form, displaying a utilitarian bridge, likely from a console set in the center of the room, light tan walls and dark grey girders reinforced what he could see, and a few crewmen in color coded uniforms moved past as the man he wanted to speak to stepped into view. His white dress uniform and golden engraved epaulette made it clear that he was an officer, a golden corded aiguillette wound from the epaulette on his left shoulder under his arm, while numerous ribbons decorated the left side of his uniforms breast, the vertical twin silver bars of a UNSC captain resting above them, while his right side stood bare, with only his ID tag visible.

His greying hair was cropped close and cut to military standard, but his sharp steel eyes betrayed the youth within them and the immediate surprise at my visage. Before he could respond, I spoke.

"Captain Jacob Keys, I presume?"


End file.
